Day of 100 surprises

EUGENE, Ore. -- Two weeks ago, Muna Lee said, she was in a truck in College Station, Texas, when it hit another vehicle that had run a red light. When Lee got out of the truck, the first thing she did was walk up a hill to make sure her legs were all right.

The crash left her with a totaled truck but little damage to her body, other than a bruised shoulder that hurt when the willowy Lee lifted weights. Not only could she walk, but Saturday Lee ran 100 meters significantly faster than ever before to become the upset winner at the U.S. Olympic trials.

“I’m very surprised,” Lee said.

Tyson Gay was equally surprised when he nearly crashed and burned out of the men’s 100 with a rookie mistake in his first-round heat. Gay, reigning world champion, eased up way too soon, then had to restart his engine to assure qualifying for the next round.

“My coach [Jon Drummond] told me, ‘Champions don’t do that. Make it up in the next round,’ ” Gay said.

Gay did that -- and more.

He set a U.S. record with a time of 9.77 seconds in his quarterfinal heat later Saturday, breaking the mark of 9.79 Maurice Greene set in 1999. This time, he eased up only in the last five meters.

The time was also seven-hundredths faster than Gay’s previous personal best. The semifinals and final are today.

“I thought it would be on ESPN as one of the most boneheaded plays,” Gay said of his first-round gaffe.

It was a day of fast times in the sprints, with Gay dominating the men’s event as expected and Lee, a vaunted relay runner at Louisiana State, surprising runners with much more impressive credentials to win her first national title in 10.85 seconds.

“Everyone says I’m not a 100-meter runner, and I wanted to be,” said Lee, a Kansas City, Mo., native.

Torri Edwards of Los Angeles, favored after a blistering 10.78 in the semifinals, once again came up short in a final, taking second in 10.90. Lauryn Williams of Miami, who always finds a way when the stakes are highest, earned the third place on the team, also in 10.90.

Allyson Felix of Los Angeles, the 200-meter world champion, probably earned herself a place on the Olympic 4x100 relay team by finishing fifth in 10.96. Felix ran on the winning U.S. relay at the 2007 worlds.

“I don’t feel I could have done anything more,” Felix said. “It just wasn’t good enough to get one of the top three.

“I can’t be too disappointed about it. I’m just looking forward to the 200.”

Edwards also professed no disappointment about losing the final, a performance that drew strong criticism from Olympic medalist Ato Boldon on NBC. With her semifinal time, Edwards had become the eighth-fastest woman ever.

“Just like in Osaka [the 2007 worlds], Torri ran three great rounds and somehow found a way to lose this race,” Boldon said.

“That’s not true,” Edwards said. “Maybe the 10.78 got my legs a little bit.”

Edwards, 31, had missed the 2004 Olympics because she was suspended for what anti-doping officials agreed was inadvertent use of a stimulant that no longer is on the banned list.

“My goal coming here was to make the team, and I’m happy with it,” she said.

It is easy to see the truth in that by considering what happened to reigning 100 world champion Veronica Campbell-Brown in Saturday’s Jamaican Olympic trials. She finished fourth, possibly missing the chance to run the event in Beijing by a hundredth of a second.

Williams, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist and 2005 world champion, makes a habit of getting onto the big meet teams when her season record suggests it looks impossible. She also was third in the 2004 Olympic trials and the 2005 world championship trials.

“All week long, I’ve just been trying to get on the team,” Williams said. “Then I decided I was as good as anyone else out there, and I wanted to win. That’s what pushed me that extra mile, even if I didn’t win.”

It was actually a foot that separated Williams from fourth-place finisher Marshevet Hooker.

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Philip Hersh covers Olympic sports for The Times and the Chicago Tribune.

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Up next

A look at today’s main events at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials:

Men’s 100-meter dash semifinals and final -- Tyson Gay set an American record of 9.77 seconds in the quarterfinals Saturday. What does he do for an encore? There were six sub-10s in the quarterfinals, including 9.89 by Travis Padgett and Darvis Patton.

Men’s and women’s 400-meter hurdles finals -- Kerron Clement, the 2007 men’s world champion, had the top semifinal time of 48.20. But Bershawn Jackson ran an easy 48.63 and could be poised for much better.

Among the women, the favorites are Tiffany Ross-Williams, who was timed in 54.75 in her semifinal, and Sheena Tosta, formerly Sheena Johnson, who ran a 54.95. The UCLA alumna won the Olympic trials title in 2004 and was fourth at Athens.

Men’s pole vault final -- Brad Walker set the American record of 19 feet 9 3/4 inches at the Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field on June 8. He had the top qualifying height of 18-4 1/2 . Athens gold medalist Tim Mack and silver medalist Toby Stevenson were in a cluster that qualified for the finals by clearing 18 feet 1/2 inch.

Men’s long jump final -- Athens champion Dwight Philips was only fifth in Friday’s qualifying, with a leap of 26 feet 1/4 inch. Brian Johnson had the top qualifying jump, 26-6 1/2 .

-- Helene Elliott