LONDON — This was a private suite in Vegas, the world’s best poker players gathered for an all-night game of no-limit to see who can go home with the biggest stack. Just because. This was a saloon in the Old West, the greatest gunfighters attending, all for the right to be the one who walks out of the room.
Just because.
This was the world’s speediest men, all accepting the challenge of taking on — and taking down — the Fastest Man Alive. This was a private challenge played in a most public way, before 80,000 frantic fans, before a worldwide television audience, and before each other, an elite quorum who know what it is to be carried faster and swifter by foot than any other people on the planet.
“I went out to challenge a mountain,” Justin Gatlin said.
They all did. Seven of the eight men who qualified for the 100-meter finals last night at Olympic Stadium got there by posting times that would have won every gold medal in every 100-meter dash contested from 1896 through 1984.
Usain Bolt is the mountain. He is Amarillo Slim and the Sundance Kid and Elvis, all rolled into one magnificent dare. He was the defending Olympic champion. He held the gold. If you wanted it, you had to earn your way in. And you had to bring credentials.
You had to be Bolt’s fellow Jamaicans: the kid, Yohan Blake, and the proud veteran, Asafa Powell. Powell had paved the way for Bolt, Blake had nearly left tire tracks on his back in June when he beat Bolt in both the 100 and the 200 in Olympic qualifying.
“That woke me up,” Bolt would admit last night. “That opened my eyes. That was Yohan saying, ‘This is an Olympic year. I’m ready. Are you?’ ”
You had to be a trio of Americans, Tyson Gay and Ryan Bailey and Justin Gatlin, all of them eager to bring the gold back stateside with them. Gatlin won the 100 in Athens, then got pinched with a four-year drug ban. Gay once ran a 9.69, the fastest for any human being not named Usain Bolt, but has endured a series of nagging leg injuries that have forever kept him off Olympic medal stands.
All of them wanted in. All of them bought in.
Bolt welcomed them, welcomed the challenge.
“These are great men, great runners,” he would say. “And we all wanted the same thing.”
They all wanted what Bolt had: the gold medal in the sport’s most glamorous event, the title of Fastest Man Alive. Forget the other things that trail in Bolt’s wake, the fame, the fat purses he commands at track meets, the reverence with which he’s held in his island country, celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence.
All of that is miscellany.
The gold is the thing. He had it. They wanted it.
And this morning, he still has it. He slipped a little out of the blocks, not unexpected because it usually takes him 30 meters or so to crank into gear. But when he does, that leaves 70 glorious meters ahead in which you can almost smell the asphalt burning.
The clock told the story: 9.63. Slower than his world record by .05, faster than any other man has ever run in the Olympics. How fast? Gatlin ran .06 faster than his winning time from ’04 and had to settle for bronze. Seven of the eight times would’ve won 21 of the 29 100s ever contested.
Some were philosophical: “To be the second-fastest man in the world behind Bolt is an honor,” said Blake, just 22, with many more tomorrows ahead of him and now a silver medal in his pocket.
Some were broken; Gay, nearing 30 and a fourth-place finisher, much of his career belonging to yesterday, wept at the end: “It’s tough. I have no excuses. I gave my all. I tried my best.”
And then there is Bolt, still the best, still the brashest and the brassiest, still the Fastest Man Alive. He wants to be a legend, insists he isn’t there yet.
“But my foot is in the door,” he said. “Let’s see how the 200 goes.”
Goodness. What will those invitations look like?
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com