Still out in front
Bolt nips favored Gatlin at finish in world championships
BEIJING – A heart-stopper. A lean at the line. A next-to-nothing margin over a more-than-game challenger.
Sure, for Usain Bolt, the winning result, the bow-and-arrow victory celebration, and even the setting may have been the same as 2008. But the show he put on Sunday in a .01-second victory over Justin Gatlin at the Bird’s Nest was something very different.
Bolt crossed the line in 9.79 seconds – pedestrian by his standards. Yet it very well may have been his greatest race.
“My coach said, ‘You’ll have to run 100 meters if you’re going to win the race,’ ” Bolt said after capturing his record ninth career gold medal at world championships. “So I ran 100 meters.”
The 29-year-old Jamaican came in hurting and anything but race ready.
Gatlin has been dominating the sprint game the last two years, while Bolt has spent more time rehabbing than racing.
The problems carried right into Sunday. Bolt’s semifinal run turned dicey when he stumbled on his fifth step out of the starting block. He was in sixth place more than halfway through and had to push to beat out Trayvon Bromell.
In the next semifinal race, Gatlin breezed, just as he had the night before in the heats. Set against each other, those performances turned Gatlin into the betting favorite.
And so, the stakes were set: The world-record holder and track’s happy warrior against a twice-convicted doper, who also won the 100 at the 2004 Olympics and the world championships in 2005.
That Gatlin burst from the blocks faster was no surprise; Bolt was his typically slow self in unfurling his 6-foot-5 frame from the start.
That Gatlin was winning at the halfway point wasn’t too shocking, either. “The best part of my race is usually the end,” Bolt said.
At 80 meters, the math started changing. Bolt drew to within a step but Gatlin was holding him off.
Then, with about 15 meters left, Gatlin over-strided, then did it again, then started leaning toward the line. Bolt stayed upright, crossed with a big kick and with his chest pushed forward. A sliver of space for a man who wins by body lengths.
“At the end of the day, I guess I would say I gave the race away the last 5 meters,” Gatlin said.