Asafa Powell pulled out of the Gaz de France meet after feeling a groin cramp while running in Rome last Friday.

The Jamaican sprinter is not taking any risks at the Golden League meet in Saint-Denis, France, with less than four weeks before the start of the Beijing Olympics.

Powell's agent, Paul Doyle, said that the former 100-meter word record holder would run in the Super Grand Prix meet in Stockholm on July 22.

"The injury is not bad," Doyle said. "It just made him realize that he has to get back into training a little bit. He wants to put in a full week of training. He's been able to train fully. But to do Paris would interrupt training too much."

Powell had held the 100 record of 9.74 seconds until May 31, when Usain Bolt ran 9.72 at the Reebok Grand Prix in New York. Tyson Gay won the US trials in 9.68, but he had too strong of a tailwind. "I think having company now in that 9.7 range actually takes pressure off? him (Powell)," Doyle said. "Everyone has been expecting him to break the world record every time and win every race.

"He's training hard and fully expects to get his world record back at some stage. I think it's exciting for these guys to be racing each other and put up these fast times."

Powell finished third in the 100 of the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan, behind Gay and Derrick Atkins.

Gay, meanwhile, is in Germany, resting, relaxing and getting ready for his next race, almost exactly like he planned before getting injured at the US Olympic Trials.

Gay sprained a muscle in the back of his left leg in a 200-meter qualifying race, a tumble that forced him to be carted off the track and ended his chances of winning two individual gold medals in Beijing.

"He's fine," his coach, Jon Drummond, said on Tuesday. "He's walking normal. There's nothing to really be overly concerned about. I feel there's no reason why he won't be 100 percent at the Games."

Drummond said Gay still plans to race in London on July 25. The only change is that he's already in Europe getting acclimated to the time change and working with doctors on his rehabilitation.

Gay headed overseas early to get in four extra days of "active recovery".? As opposed to the lounging-around rest he would have needed had he run two more grueling heats in the 200.

"That's the part I'm trying to get out there: It didn't matter if he'd fallen or not. He was going to get 10 days of active recovery anyway," Drummond said. "So we've just extended the 10 days to 14.

"The muscle is 100 percent by then, and everything else is back to business. We're taking every necessary precaution, treating it like it is something serious, because the body needs that. You've got to pamper it."

(Agencies via Shanghai Daily July 17, 2008)