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From the start, Mayo never obsessed about track, hardly talked about it, but everyone knew she hated losing.

"I think that's why she stayed in the sport," Treshell Mayo-Herndon said, "because she wanted to prove to people she deserved to be there."

Rose Monday, the coach of the girls' 2006 U.S. world junior team, spent several weeks with Mayo last summer. She noticed talent right away, but it took longer to identify Mayo's competitiveness.

She saw the spark as Mayo grabbed the baton on the anchor leg of the 4x100 relay race at the Road to Eugene meet in August. As if projected from a slingshot, Mayo lifted the team to victory and a world junior record.

"She got the stick from behind ... maybe 10 meters back, and she just took off," Monday recalled. "And I thought, 'Oh, my god, this girl is going to be really good.' "

A few weeks later, Mayo anchored that same team to a gold medal in the World Junior Championships in Beijing sponsored by the International Association of Athletics Federation.

After Mayo's potential became clear last summer, her mother noticed a budding maturity, a newfound commitment to develop her gifts.

"There was a transformation in Gabby," Sandra Mayo said. "She went from a caterpillar to a butterfly."

Mayo will need to transform many more times to compete at the next levels of competition, where everyone is fast and most have Olympic aspirations.

Mayo saw this when she participated last month in the Reebok Boston Indoor Games -- her first competition against professionals. She was the first high school athlete ever invited to the event.

Unusually nervous as she faced chiseled former NCAA champions and veteran sprinters, Mayo finished last, in eighth place.

Tension before the 60-meter race, televised on ESPN2, had her biting her nails at the starting line. She was so anxious she couldn't raise her hand for a timeout to adjust in her blocks and had a terrible start.

Afterward, Mayo walked around dazed, close to tears. She signed autographs for children but rarely looked anyone in the eye. In answering questions, she mumbled five words: "I wasn't nervous until today."

Back at the Jurys Boston Hotel, Mayo's sulk and limp limbs told the story. This was not how she envisioned her birthday weekend ending.

She could not believe that nearly 5,000 people watched her run 60 meters in 7.50 seconds. The winning time was 7.24 seconds. A week before, she had run 55 meters in 6.90. Mayo said it felt as though she ran in slow motion, as if running outside her body.

Surrounded by positive vibes, she soaked in encouragement. Her aunt said, "Brush it off." Her mom reiterated how proud she was. Her dad phoned. Coach Hayes explained that nervousness caused her to burn energy and she couldn't catch up.

Eventually, Mayo calmed down and began to laugh again and talked casually on her cell phone. By the following Monday, she had left her frigid Boston experience behind, her confidence restored.

She was Gabby again -- a precocious young sprinter ready to take off down another hallway.

Ready, perhaps, to run all the way to the Olympics.

"I did well last year," she said. "I want to take it a step further. I ran fast, now it's time to run faster."

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