The American sprinter the race in 9.77 seconds to win gold medal
Justin Gatlin of the U.S. wins the men's 100m at the Diamond League Memorial Van Damme athletics event at Brussels
Brussels: US sprinter Justin Gatlin rolled back the years to scorch to a rare 100-200m double at the final Diamond League meet of the season on Friday.Belying his 32 years, Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100m gold medallist and double sprint world champion in 2005 before serving a 2006-10 doping ban, first raced the 100m and won by setting a season’s fastest time of 9.77sec.
Amazingly, the American’s time matched his world record-equalling mark set in Qatar in 2006 later rescinded because of his doping infraction. Only four men have ever run faster: Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, American Tyson Gay, and Jamaican duo Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell. Gatlin then returned to the track just an hour later and blasted to an incredible victory in the 200m in 19.71sec, just 0.03 slower than his own world leading time.
“I wanted to go undefeated,” Gatlin said.“There’s one man (Bolt) who’s dominated for years and I want to come up against that,” he added. Gatlin came to Brussles with the fastest times of the year in both sprints 9.80 in the 100m and 19.68sec in the 200m.And he went one better at the King Baudouin Stadium to maintain his unbeaten season record over the blue riband event, with Bolt having already called it a day after his injury-plagued year.
Gatlin, in lane three of nine, blasted out of the blocks and held an almost immediate lead over a formidable field that included the second and fourth fastest men of all time in the respective shapes of Gay and Powell. With no big screen at the finishing line, athletes at the Brussels arena have no choice but to charge for the line rather than eyeing up rivals’ positions and possibly easing up.
Dressed in a figure-gripping red, white and blue sprint singlet, Gatlin did just that to edge out fellow-American Michael Rodgers (9.93), but fell just 0.01sec short of Bolt’s stadium record set in 2011. “All the Americans are running fast and I felt I was getting my groove back,” said the 29-year-old Rodgers said.
Barshim clears 2.43m to win high jump
Mutaz Essa Barshim is a rarity in high-class Qatari athletics not an incomer from Nigeria or Kenya but a real homegrown talent who is within a whisper of breaking one of track and field’s most legendary records.On Friday, Barshim, became the second highest man of all time after clearing 2.43 metres in the men’s high jump. Barshim was locked in a battle royal with Bohdan Bondarenko, both attempting 2.46m, 1cm higher than Javier Sotomayor’s 21-year-old record.
( Source : AFP )
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