EUGENE, Oregon (AP) — Even when he’s not running, Usain Bolt is there.

His name and his world records hover over every athletics meet in every corner of the globe.

The shadow he casts is even more pronounced at big meets like this week’s US championships, where Bolt’s key challenger Tyson Gay pulled out with an injury and the other would-be contenders are a 29-year-old on a comeback from a doping conviction and an Olympic bronze medallist who still needs to find a faster gear.

There are 13 months to go until the London Olympics. And in America — supposedly a breeding ground for some of the world’s fastest track stars — there are few signs that anyone is ready to give Bolt a go.

“They won’t do it running 9.9,” said Ato Boldon, the former Olympic medal winner from Trinidad and Tobago.

Bolt’s world record is 9.58. In the US 100-metre final on Friday, on one of the fastest tracks in the country and with a light breeze at their back, the best time was 9.94 by Walter Dix. Don’t know much about Walter Dix? Not your fault. He was part of the “Footnotes To History” collection in Beijing, winning bronze medals in the 100 and 200 on the same nights Bolt was rewriting the record book.

In Eugene this week, Dix barely beat Justin Gatlin, who is returning to the sport after serving a four-year doping ban that deprived him of his prime years.

And Gay?

He wasn’t in the final — victim of a nagging hip injury that will deprive him, and the world, of a showdown with Bolt at the World Championships, nine weeks from now.

Before 2008, Gay was track’s biggest star, a defending world champion in the 100 and 200 and the early favourite to win gold at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing.

Then, Bolt got serious about the 100. At a meet in New York a few months before the Olympics, Bolt ran a world-record time of 9.72 seconds. Just as significantly, he beat Gay by 0.13 seconds — the track version of a 30-point blowout in a basketball game.

Since then, Bolt has been setting records on bigger stages — at the Beijing Olympics, then again at the 2009 worlds — and everyone else has been racing for second.

And during a period in which Gay should be trying to close the gap, he has spent the bulk of his time fighting off injuries.

He was grimacing while he warmed up on Friday, knowing he needed a top-three finish to make the trip to the worlds for a chance at Bolt this year. He conceded that shutting things down at the nationals was a nod toward the reality that the Olympics are what really matter in a sport that doesn’t get much time in the spotlight.

“Pretty much,” Gay said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s an ongoing thing since February. I’ve been bandaging it up, couldn’t really take no more. I decided to stay healthy.”

This latest setback could end his year, making his form and his potential even harder to predict heading into 2012. Slowed by injuries in 2008, he missed the Olympic final in Beijing. He turns 29 in August, while Bolt is still in his peak years at 24.

“As he gets older, it’s going to get more difficult for him,” Boldon said, referring to Gay. “That Olympic team is going to be difficult to make and it’s going to be hard for him to stay healthy in the Olympic year.

“I still say that he has to learn how to start better and not, in every race he runs, have to absolutely floor it to come from behind. I think that’s why he’s hurt so much.”

Without Gay in the mix, there are candidates to challenge Bolt, but no clear contenders. At least not in America.

Dix is 25. He has the two bronze medals and his lacklustre 9.94 this week could be explained away because of a leg cramp that hit him in the semi-finals.

“Jamaicans, they’re fast. They’re about as good as us,” Dix said, conveniently leaving out the fact that he lost to Bolt by a combined 0.90 seconds on his third-place nights in Beijing.

In a different sort of denial is Gatlin, who once held a share of the world record — back when Bolt was still a teenager and well before his own name was erased from the record book because of a doping scandal he tried to deflect by claiming a massage therapist rubbed a testosteronelike cream onto his legs.

“I don’t think anybody trains for a silver or bronze. If they do, then they don’t need to be in the sport anymore,” Gatlin said.

He’s in it to win it, but to get there, he’ll have a year to shave 0.3 seconds off what he ran this week in Eugene.

Assuming, that is, that Bolt is still himself when he reappears. He did deal with injuries and actually lost to Gay in 2010, though it’s widely accepted that little matters during the middle year of the Olympic cycle.

It starts mattering again now.

As the defending world champion, Bolt didn’t have to race at Jamaica’s championships, which are also being held this weekend.

But he was at the track — running down from the stands to congratulate his training partner Yohan Blake, who finished second to Asafa Powell in their 100 final.

Bolt’s presence was felt at the track in Eugene, too. He wasn’t there in person, but certainly in spirit — and still no closer to being caught at the next Olympics than he was at the last one.