Down on one knee, hands stretched ahead, head bowed. Justin Gatlin, the victor, was, surprisingly, saluting Usain Bolt, the vanquished. It was a gesture of pure respect towards the legend he had just beaten to win the gold in 100m sprint at the 2017 World Championships in London.
It was Bolt’s swansong, and Gatlin had struck a discordant note by denying the Jamaican the final hurray, clocking 9.92 seconds to come out on top. In fact, Bolt came third, with another American Christian Coleman taking the silver. The crowd, which was rooting for Bolt, was disappointed and they booed their displeasure.
Gatlin is not a stranger to such hostile reception. Twice banned for doping offences, the American sprint great is treated as some sort of a pantomime villain by the crowds. He stormed to the 100m gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and then became the second person ever to complete the 100m and 200m double, at the 2005 World Championships.
But, soon after, his career went off-track, literally, because of a doping ban from 2006 to 2010. It coincided with the rise of Bolt, and Gatlin was destined to be in the Jamaican’s shadow over the next two Games. He won the bronze in 2012 London Olympics, and went one better in Rio four years later. Bolt won the gold on both occasions.
The 2016 Rio Games was the Jamaican’s last Olympics. Gatlin seemed to have finally arrived the next year, when he finally beat Bolt in the latter’s farewell race. All eyes were set on Tokyo, where Gatlin was expected to win the elusive gold.
The COVID-19 pandemic prolonged the wait by one more year, but Gatlin, despite being 39, fancied his chances. He ran four of the 13 fastest times in the world in 2019.
But it was not to be, as he aggravated a hamstring injury in the finals of the 100m at the US Olympic Track and Field Trials 2021 in June. Gatlin came second in the heats and third in the semifinals. However, in the finals, the injury saw him limping across the finish line after all the runners. His hopes of an Olympics gold and the ambition to become the oldest man to compete at the men's 100m race in the Games were washed away in tears.
Despite reigning 100m world champion Coleman’s absence because of an 18-month ban for missing three doping tests within a year, Gatlin would not have had it easy even if he had made it to the 100m finals at the Tokyo Olympics. His biggest challenge, perhaps, would have been his compatriot Trayvon Bromell, who holds the current world-leading time of 9.77 seconds.
The other promising stars include another American Noah Lyles, who will be the one to watch out for in the 200m race, South African Akani Simbine and Canada’s Andre De Grasse, who won the bronze in Rio.
But Gatlin had time and again proved that adversity brought out the best in him. He had been, in his own words, training for the past 4-5 years with only the Olympics in mind.
With Bolt retired, Gatlin would have been the superstar at the 100m race. The American’s absence has surely taken off most of the sheen of the much-awaited event on July 31.
Gatlin still has the Diamond League meets and the World Championships next year to go out on a high, but a golden farewell at the sport’s biggest stage will remain an unfulfilled dream for one of the best sprinters of this era.