BERLIN — Turns out, Usain Bolt can be beaten after all — in a ho-hum, second-round heat, when he’s clowning around with the runner next to him and shutting down that effortless stride nearly 40 meters short of the finish.
Smiling as he sauntered down the track in the 100 meters, the Jamaican sensation casually glanced over at Daniel Bailey as the sprinter from Antigua pulled up alongside him at the world championships Saturday.
Bolt never flinched, didn’t speed up, just let Bailey have his moment.
Don’t expect that to happen again. The world-record holder looked in fine form in his first two qualifying heats — both in antics and in racing.
In an interview room next to the track, Bolt’s top rival, Tyson Gay, was taking in the scene on television as he bent down to tie his shoe.
“Looks easy,” Gay said.
Almost too easy. And that’s who’s coming after Gay’s world title.
The 100 is shaping up as a showdown between Gay and Bolt, a three-time Olympic champion in Beijing.
That is, if Gay’s groin holds up. The American sprinter has been hampered by the injury part of the summer and said it felt a “little sore” after his heats.
Overall, though, Gay thinks he’s where he needs to be, even if his starts were a little slow.
Despite a slow burst from the blocks, Gay won his quarterfinal race in 9.98 seconds, while Bolt finished in a non-chalant 10.03.
“I felt real good,” Gay said. “I haven’t even worked on my starts yet. So to run that fast felt good.”
The best time of the evening was turned in by Bolt’s teammate, Asafa Powell, who cruised in at 9.95 seconds.
That scare woke him up.
In his opening heat, Powell shut his race down early and was nearly caught from behind and edged out for the last automatic spot. In the quarterfinals, there was no hint of letting up.
“I was running too easy. I underestimated the guys,” Powell said. “They were coming on very fast . . . I just wanted to get out of today.”
In other events, University of Colorado star Jenny Barringer almost got swallowed up in the final two laps of the 3,000-meter steeplechase but was able to fight her way out of trouble and advance to the finals by finishing third in the second heat with a time of 9:26.81.
“I was so confident in the beginning, but you can’t do that here because everyone is so good and everyone deserves to be here,” Barringer said.
American Christian Cant-well won the shot put, while Valeriy Borchin of Russia captured the 20-kilometer walk and Linet Masai of Kenya took the gold in the women’s 10,000.
