The teenage daughter of US Olympic sprinter Tyson Gay died on Sunday after a shooting at a restaurant in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S., local media reported.
Trinity Gay, 15, – herself a rising track athlete – was shot in the neck about 4 am (0800 GMT), police said, according to the Lexington Herald Leader.
She died in hospital within an hour of being transported.
Witnesses said Gay was hit during an exchange of gunfire between two cars, according to police.
Two people in one of the cars have been detained for questioning.
Tyson Gay, who holds the US record in the 100m, told local television station WLEX, “She didn’t make it. I’m so confused. She was just here last week for fall break. It’s so crazy. I have no idea what happened.”
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Trinity Gay was a top high school sprinter who dreamed of competing in the Olympics and becoming a surgeon, according to her mother, Shoshana Boyd.
“She was so innocent. She was so innocent,” Boyd told the New York Daily News.
“I just want people to stop shooting and realize who they’re hurting. It’s just random. They don’t understand. They don’t understand who they’re hurting.”
Gay competed in the 2016 Olympics on the 4×100-metre relay team but didn’t win a medal.
He was also a member of the 4×100-metre relay at the 2012 Olympics but was disqualified due to a positive doping test.
Gay has won numerous medals in major international competitions, including a gold medal sweep of the 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 m relay at the 2007 Osaka World Championships.
This made him the second man to win all three events at the same World Championships, after Maurice Greene (Usain Bolt duplicated the feat two years later). Gay is a four-time U.S. champion in the 100 m.
Gay is a two-time winner of the Jesse Owens Award, was the 2007 IAAF World Athlete of the Year, won Best Track and Field Athlete for Track & Field News in 2007 and for ESPY Award in 2008 and 2011.
He has also achieved multiple Men’s season’s best performances in the 100 m and 200 m.