The world according to Tyson

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BEIJING -- After speaking informally on Sunday to a handful of U.S. media (yes, I was in that number), Tyson Gay did an hour-long news conference Monday afternoon.

On the biggest stage of his life, before global media assembled at the Olympics, the leading U.S. sprinter was the same as always: modest, soft-spoken, respectful. He was both refreshingly awestruck by his initial Olympic experience and unafraid to admit his excitement, especially about having NBA star Kobe Bryant know who he was and ask how his leg was doing.

He immediately sent a text message to his mother, Daisy: ‘Kobe asked me about my leg.’

‘This is the best experience I’ve ever had in my life,’ Gay said. ‘Opening ceremonies, words can’t even describe it.’

It gave him a birthday ‘candle’ he will never forget, because soon after the cauldron at the Olympic stadium was lit, it was the start of Gay’s 26th birthday.

Some other highlights of the news conference:

*Gay said he was fully confident the hamstring injured at the U.S. Olympic trials would hold up for the four rounds of the 100 meters, beginning with two runs on Friday. In fact, it must have improved since Sunday, when he described it as 85%.

‘It’s 100%,’ he said Monday.

*To explain the pressure on his Jamaican rivals, Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell, Gay cited an incident in the Olympic village, when another Jamaican athlete came up to him and said, ‘ ‘I hope you don’t break up our sweep of 1-2.’ I’m pretty sure they are hearing the same thing, that their country wants them to go 1-2.’

*Gay paused several seconds and furrowed his brow after being asked who the favorite is.

‘The guy with the fastest time in the world and world record-holder [Bolt], he could be the favorite,’ Gay said.

*He put a positive spin on the Olympic trials injury that kept him from making the U.S. team in the 200 and the 100.

‘If I was running the 100 and the 200, I think I would have been a lot more nervous and had a little more pressure on me. Going for two gold medals would have been on my mind the whole time.’

*Unsurprisingly, Gay expressed nothing but respect for his Jamaican rivals in an event that -- surprisingly -- recently has been free of the preening and trash talking of the past.

‘I’ve never believed you had to put on a certain swagger just because you are in the 100-meter dash,’’ Gay said. ‘That’s the way I was raised. Sometimes, when you’re watching TV with your parents and someone on the TV is doing something they don’t approve of, your mother will say, ‘He’s cocky.’ So you know not to be like that.’

*Gay may have broken 2000 Olympic champion Maurice Greene’s U.S. record with his time of 9.77 at the U.S. Olympic trials, but he doesn’t think that puts him in Greene’s class.

‘I don’t really compare myself to Maurice Greene. I haven’t reached that status yet, not even close. It’s amazing I ran faster than him.’

-- Philip Hersh