Tyson Gay's dream of competing for a 100 metres and 200m double in Beijing is over after he collapsed with 'severe cramp' during his 200m quarter-final at the US Olympic Team Track & Field Trials.
Gay, the reigning 100m and 200m world champion, appeared to trip 40 metres into the opening heat of the quarter-finals at Hayward Field.
He landed heavily on the track and stayed down as the race continued before being helped off the track on a stretcher wheeled by medical staff.
USA Track & Field officials said the initial diagnosis found Gay's injury was not as serious as first feared.
'It was a severe cramp of his left hamstring,' a USATF official said. 'There is no apparent damage otherwise. He has a little bit of "road rash" from the fall and he's currently at the hotel resting with his physio.
'He said he felt a little tightness during his warm-up.'
Serious or not, Gay's injury is enough to knock him out of the 200m at the Olympics as Team USA will only take the top three finishers from the trials and do not make exceptions.
Gay has already qualified for the 100m but will not get a chance to go for the double.
'I'm very disappointed,' he said in a quote relayed by a spokesperson for USATF.
Gay's injury was the second blow to hit Team USA's medal hopes at the trials.
There was also disappointment in the men's 110m hurdles opening round as former Olympic and four-time world champion Allen Johnson failed to finish his heat, the 37-year-old gold medalist from 1996 pulling up hurt and therefore missing out on a fourth Olympic Games.
'I just injured my posterior tibialis tendon,' Johnson explained later. 'I injured it about six weeks ago and it just didn't heal and hold up today.
'I knew this was a possibility, I hoped that it wouldn't happen, but it just didn't hold up.
'After the first hurdle as I kept going, the pain just got progressively worse. This is really disappointing for me. I just wanted to try and go back, but I'll be at home watching it on TV.
'I'm done for the year and now I'll go back and try and get this thing healed, maybe have surgery on it.'
