Championship runner Gay turns to mom for assurance

A PLACE TO TURN FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP RUNNER

By Lynn Zinser

c.2008 New York Times News Service

BEIJING — The moment Daisy Lowe saw her son tumble to the track during the Olympic trials last month, a stadium full of people in Eugene, Ore., gasping along with her, she knew that no matter how many trainers and doctors rushed to his side, the thing Tyson Gay needed most was her.

Lowe scrambled frantically to the track, cajoling her way through security and finally reaching Gay’s side. An injured hamstring had cost him an Olympic berth in the 200 meters, and suddenly his entire Olympic dream seemed in peril.

“He didn’t say a word but you could see it in his face; he was scared,” Lowe said. “I knew I just needed to calm him down. I laid my hands on him and said in his ear, ‘It’s going to be O.K. You’re going to be in Beijing. Don’t believe those thoughts.”’

Gay, his hamstring injury healed, has made it to Beijing and is preparing to play his part in what should be a spectacular showdown in the 100 meters starting Friday. Gay, the defending world champion, and his Jamaican rivals Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell, are the three fastest men in history.

But at 26, even with all his accomplishments, Gay still turns to the same place in the big moments of his life. At the opening ceremony, Gay sent his mother a text message to tell her the basketball star Kobe Bryant had not only known who he was, but asked about his injury, something that stunned the ever-modest Gay. When he was nervous before the start of the 100 meters at the world championships last year, he sent her a text message for reassurance.

“I do call her and talk to her about things,” Gay said. “It’s weird a little bit because she doesn’t know that much about track but she understands how to keep me calm.”

Gay’s entire family has come to Beijing to cheer him on, including Daisy’s husband, Tim Lowe, and their two younger children, along with Tyson’s older sister, Tiffany. There is Tiffany’s 8-year-old daughter and Tyson’s 7-year-old daughter, Trinity, completing a lively, blended family that comes together to form its own raucous cheering section at Gay’s biggest meets. It is at those meets when Gay always wants them around.

“My family helps me stay relaxed,” Gay said. “A lot of people think that’s strange and like to be by themselves, but I like being around my family at track meets. I feel comfortable, just like being at home.”

Gay is the quietest of them all, at heart still the kid that spent his childhood in Lexington, Ky., trying to beat Tiffany in races from the car to the grocery store doors, or home from the school bus stop. He is unfailingly polite and speaks so softly, people have to lean in close to hear him.

At the heart of the family is the 42-year-old Daisy, who had Tiffany and Tyson when she was a teenager, and who seemingly steered them through life with the force of her personality. She is as effusive as Tyson is reserved, wearing her emotions for everyone to see.

When Tyson landed in Beijing, she said he sent her a text message. She replied in all capital letters, “ARE YOU READY?” The response was typical Tyson: “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m super-duper pumped up,” Lowe said. “But that’s just him. He’s just a little different than the rest of us.”

While Daisy’s family helped her take care of her two young children, she worked her way into a better job at the Toyota plant in Lexington. It was there she met Tim and the blended family grew to include Haley, now 12, and Seth, 10. But Tyson and Tiffany had grown up closest, only a year apart in age, doing nearly everything together and competing at any kind of game or race they could make up.

“I won the majority of the races,” Tiffany said. “I was about 15 when he finally beat me. We were getting off the bus and we ran home, I still say he had an edge of a head start when he beat me. I remember it to this day.”

When Tiffany joined the track team as a high school freshman, Tyson followed suit for his eighth-grade team. She gave up track when she had her daughter, also as a teenager, but lives out a longer track career through Tyson.

“When he’s getting in the starting blocks, it’s like I’m getting in the starting blocks because I remember how it felt,” Tiffany said. “You take deep breaths. When he gets in the blocks, I’m taking deep breaths like I’m getting ready to run. I still get that adrenaline rush when he’s getting ready to run.”

Daisy, though, said she had no idea how good Tyson was at track. She was thrilled for him when he won three state championships in the 100 and 200, when he continued to win at Barton Community College and when he went on to run for Arkansas. It was not until he won the NCAA championship in 2004 that she began to understand.

Now, Gay travels the world for meets and splits his training time with his two coaches, Lance Brauman in Orlando, Fla., and the former Olympic sprinter Jon Drummond in Arlington, Texas. He spends his month off from training — November — in Lexington, usually crashing at Tiffany’s house. The Lowes now live in Prattville, Ala., so the family unites at holidays and at Gay’s biggest meets. They rented a big house to share for the Olympic trials in Eugene.

That is where the family went through the ups and downs of Gay’s brightest moment and the frightening one that threatened his Olympic dream.

In the second round of the 100 meters, Gay set an American record of 9.77 seconds. In the final, with his family screaming in joy and amazement, Gay ran a 9.68, which would have shattered Bolt’s world record of 9.72 except he had a tailwind of 4.0 meters per second, beyond the allowed 2.0 limit. But no man had ever run faster, regardless of the wind.

The cheers, though, stopped early in the 200. It was the second round when Gay, barely a dozen steps into the race, appeared to take an awkward step and went down, legs and arms flying, a look of sheer agony on his face.

“I was in a little bit of a panic,” Gay said. “It really hurt when it first happened. When I was on the ground, it eased up a little bit. But I was really upset because the same thing happened to me in 2004 and I didn’t make the team.”

After Gay had been carried off the track, Lowe found her way to his side and immediately started to soothe her son.

“It’s just like when they’re 2 years old and they fall down and skin their knees,” Lowe said. “You just want to fix it. I don’t think that ever goes away.

”You could see what he was thinking, the fear that it’s over.“

Later that night, back in their rented house, Lowe said she saw Tyson playing video games with Seth, laughing and joking like normal. She said she knew then he would be fine.

When Gay was finally in Beijing, soaking in the experience at the opening ceremony, he texted his mother again when he saw the caldron being lit. It was 12:01 a.m. on August 9, Gay’s 26th birthday.

”Words can’t really describe it,“ Gay said. ”I really couldn’t believe it. It was an experience I’ll never forget.“

And so he shared it with his mother again, as best he could.