Striving to get back on stride

They were overscheduled, underprepared and outclassed.

The American sprint trio of Jeremy Wariner, Allyson Felix and Tyson Gay were favorites in the months leading into the Beijing Olympics, expected to exit the Bird’s Nest with lots of gold medals hanging from their necks.

Instead, they enter 2009 with a lot to prove because of injuries, training issues and -- oh, yeah -- those lightning-fast Jamaicans.

Felix and Wariner left with gold medals, but they were in the 1,600-meter relays -- about the closest thing there is to a gimmie on the Olympic program for Americans. They won silver medals in their individual events -- disappointments, but still better than the suitcase full of nothing that Gay took home.

“It was just kind of a feeling of disbelief,” Gay said at a recent Adidas media event.

The 2007 world champion in the 100 and 200 went into the Olympics not fully recovered from an injury at the Olympic trials. But even at full health, Gay would’ve been in trouble. Usain Bolt of Jamaica set world records in the 100 and 200.

Felix, meanwhile, didn’t need words to describe her disappointment. She was crying in the Bird’s Nest after losing to Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown in the 200. Wariner’s defeat in the 400 came at the hands of an American, LaShawn Merritt, though his struggles last year can be ascribed to many self-inflicted wounds, as well.

It wasn’t so much Wariner’s split with longtime coach Clyde Hart that did him in as it was the loss of quality training time that such a change brings with it.

“It set me back a month and a half,” he said. “I didn’t get the base. That takes a month and a half. And by the time we got there, I’m already at my first meet in Australia. Then, we’re training for the meet instead of acting like we didn’t have a meet, which is what we should’ve been doing.”

Those setbacks showed themselves in many ways. By the time summer rolled around, Wariner found himself letting up too much in the middle of his races, then using too much energy to start kicking in the homestretch.

He got that flaw figured out after a few trips to his agent and mentor Michael Johnson’s place in Texas, but by the time the benefits from those changes started kicking in, Wariner was lining up in Beijing, with Merritt at the top of his game.

Instead of defending his Olympic title, Wariner labored to the finish, feeling fortunate to finish second.

“I’m looking back at what I did, changing things to where I’m training as hard as I can at all times,” Wariner said. “When I’m on the line about to run, I’m going to run my hardest every race. I’m not going to slow down. I’m going out there telling people I’m here for a reason. I’m not just out here to run. I’m out here to win.”

Of course, winning in an Olympic year is much different than winning in any other year, which helps explain Felix’s reaction after her disappointment in the 200.

She had won the two world championships since the Athens Olympics at that distance, but her performances in the last two Olympics have netted a pair of silvers, both in losses to Campbell-Brown.

“The race went like deja vu from 2004,” Felix said. “I didn’t get out very well, that was the biggest problem. Then, you’re getting behind early and I could feel the race getting away from me.”

Unlike Wariner, Felix has no plans to drastically alter her training regimen, although she did take about 10 weeks off after the Olympics to get away from track, then briefly experimented with hurdles before realizing they weren’t for her.

She realized her biggest flaw in the leadup to the Olympics was trying to do too much off the track. Most notably, she flew to Europe to race, then flew back to Los Angeles for a friend’s wedding, then back to Europe again before the trip to China.

“I made a few decisions that were unfortunate and we all saw the results of that,” Felix said.

Gay, meanwhile, conceded he wasn’t in top shape heading to the Olympics, but still thought the hamstring he injured during the Olympic trials was fully healed. Until, that is, he started warming up for the 100 semifinals.

“It just grabbed me a little bit,” he said. “I thought I could gut it out and make it to the final but it didn’t happen.”

He got to see Bolt showboat his way to the world record in the final, but only on the big screen in the back, not beside him on the track.

“I took it all in and was amazed, and started preparing myself mentally to say, ‘I’ve got to get on top of my game,’” Gay said.

They all do. For 2009 and beyond.

The competition isn’t getting any easier. Bolt and Asafa Powell will be back for Jamaica. Campbell-Brown, too. And Shelly-Ann Fraser’s surprise win in the 100 was proof that the small island country can produce unexpected winners.

America’s top sprinters were part of an overall disappointing Olympics for the United States, which led USA Track and Field to commission a study and call for changes in some training and coaching practices.

Wariner -- one of the few sprinters whose biggest competition comes from within America, not outside -- believes U.S. athletes have to do it individually.

“We didn’t all of the sudden get bad,” he said. “Other athletes just got better, so you do what you have to do to get better, too.”