WHEN WORLD record holder Asafa Powell was beaten into third spot by American Tyson Gay, losing the race was not the problem. On a given day anyone can win or lose, but the way the sprinter lost must cast doubt on his ability to achieve sprinting's ultimate prize.

With the Olympic Games just a little more than a year away, the road to the 100 metres gold medal seems to have stretched far into the distance for Powell after such a monumental loss. In truth, the problem is that the meet billed to be the clash of the titans not only saw the Jamaican lose but also bow to the pressure from an already cocky American opponent, by giving up on the race. What a mistake to make. That could prove to be as devastating an injury as any physical one.

The fact is that despite all the credit received so far, the world's fastest man has just not lived up to the billing on the big occasion. A loss for a young Powell at the last Olympic Games was an understandable one but a change in opponents and a couple more years experience has still not seen Powell able to take his spot at the top of the sprint medal hill and that is a cause for concern.

Will Powell suffer a similar fate to another of our stars, Merlene Ottey?

In some respects Powell will be lucky to have half of the career Ottey has had. Certainly, there is no shortage of accolades to describe the 15- time Jamaican Sportswoman of the Year.

Legendary sprinter

The legendary sprinter, who now resides in and represents Slovenia, was the first female athlete to run the 100m under 11 seconds. She has the most consecutive wins over 100m for any female athlete and is one of only two athletes to win 20 medals at the Olympic Games and the World Cham-pionships combined. The lengthy list goes on. Yet, despite all these accolades under her belt, a painful fact, whether you choose to admit it or not, is that Merlene is just as well known for being second best on big occasions.

Between the World Championships and Olympic Games, Ottey has an astounding 22 medals in total, but only three gold - a 4x100m relay medal at the World Championships in Tokyo 1981, a 200m gold in Stuttgart, Germany in 1993 and then again in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1995.

Not a bad record, but in addition to the conspicuous absence of the Olympic gold from the neck of the sprint queen, some of her contemporaries have in truth just bumped her out of that top spot far too often.

Gwen Torrence has three Olympic gold medals and three World Championship gold medals, while Gail Devers has three Olympic and a jaw-dropping five World Championship first-place finishes.

It's not a stretch to argue that the talented Ottey achieved far less than she should have but the question is, is Powell headed along the same path? For the sake of Jamaican sprinting, we hope not.

The good news is that Powell is still a young man and an Olympic gold medal is still well within sight if competitiveness can be developed, as former sprinter Michael Johnson has sug-gested. But opportunities vanish in an instant and time flies by quickly - especially in sprinting.

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