STANFORD, Calif. (AP) – He may be the world’s fastest man, but at least for now Tim Montgomery isn’t even the speediest guy in America.

Montgomery stumbled early in the race and could not run down Bernard Williams, who won the 100 meters in 10.11 seconds at the U.S. track and field championships Friday night.

“My stride was kind of choppy. I lengthened my stride, and that’s when I lost it. I touched the ground,” Montgomery said. “Then I just closed my eyes and ran.”

Kelli White won the national title in the women’s 100 in 10.93, the fastest time in the world this year. Torri Edwards was second and two-time Olympic 100 champion Gail Devers was third in a race missing Marion Jones.

Montgomery was second in the men’s race in 10.15 and Jon Drummond was third in 10.18. The top three will be on the U.S. team for the world championships this August in Paris.

Also running in the world championships will be three-time defending champion Maurice Greene, who has been Montgomery’s archrival for years.

Montgomery broke Greene’s world record last year in Paris with a time of 9.78, and will get a chance to dethrone him as world champ later this summer.

Though he obviously would have liked to head into the summer as U.S. champion, Montgomery said he was fortunate just to qualify for the world championships after stumbling on his third stride Friday night.

“I was ready to run, but some things aren’t meant to happen at certain times,” he said. “I lost the battle but I can still win the war.”

Montgomery’s defeat in the 100 was yet another setback in what has been a tough year for the world record holder.

He has faced the pressures of being the world’s fastest man, of preparing for parenthood with the world’s fastest woman, and of being criticized for associating with a coaching pariah.

“No one felt my pain for the last six months and everybody knows stress wears you down,” he said after Thursday’s heats. “I’m very happy I put everything in my past.”

Montgomery and girlfriend Jones broke with coach Trevor Graham early this year and then began a controversial flirtation with disgraced coach Charlie Francis – who was connected to steroid use by Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson.

Jones and Montgomery quickly ended their relationship with Francis after criticism from international and U.S. track officials, but not before having their image tarnished – and their judgment questioned. While Montgomery will be competing in Paris, Jones will not. She and Montgomery are preparing for the birth of a child in July.

Her absence at the U.S. championships was expected to leave the field wide open in the women’s 100, in which Jones is a four-time national champion. But White turned the event into a one-woman show.

White, who also posted the fastest times in Thursday’s first round and in the semifinals earlier Friday night, pulled away from the field to win by a whopping two-tenths of a second.

The biggest surprise among the women’s qualifiers was 36-year-old Devers, who had run just one competitive 100 since the 2000 U.S. Olympic trials. She was Olympic champion in the event in 1992 and 1996.

Other winners Friday included Jamie Nieto in the men’s high jump, Kristin Heaston in the women’s shot put and Shelia Burrell in the heptathlon.

AP-ES-06-20-03 2326EDT