THE morality play is still on course for its final act in Beijing today. Lord Coe, the new president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, says he feels “queasy” at the possible crowning of Justin Gatlin, a twice banned drugs cheat, as the 100m champion and his stomach would not have been quelled by the sight of the American loping to a time of 9.83sec in the 100m heats last night in the Bird’s Nest stadium.
It was an emphatic statement of intent by the 33-year-old, who has been running quicker this season than before he was suspended for taking steroids — and it was made on the track that, seven years ago, Usain Bolt had made his own.
Gatlin could easily have coasted home to qualify for the semi-finals today but without ever engaging fourth gear he ran hard to the line, clocking the fastest time of the night.
Jeers had greeted his appearance. His brooding, muscular, presence was reminiscent of George Foreman in his early days and, for perhaps the first time, Bolt seemed to feel the weight of his role as the saviour of the sport. There was markedly less showboating than usual, just a thumbs-up and a half smile before Bolt himself eased to victory in his heat. He ran 9.96sec with some nonchalance but none of the swagger of the multiple champion in his prime.
Mike Rodgers, his perpetual shadow, was just a fraction of a second behind. His fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell, Trayvon Bromell, the 21-year-old American, and Jimmy Vicaut of France all qualified ahead of Bolt.
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There was enough in Bolt’s run to suggest he has moved on from the Anniversary Games in London last month, where he twice ran 9.87sec, and that he has a lot more to come.
For seven years, Bolt has straddled the line between supreme champion and great showman with a genius that has made him the track’s one global superstar. Almost single-handed, he has charmed the public and rescued his sport from the demons that have threatened to engulf it for so long. Now he has to make the ultimate repayment on his fame. He has certainly felt the pressure.
When Bolt went to London recently to compete and pick up a fat tax-free cheque from the organisers of the Anniversary Games, he was reduced to pleading for help. Do not, he said in as many words, expect me to shoulder the future of athletics all on my own. But, today, he will be asked to do just that and in the very same arena where he took just 9.69sec to reshape the world of sprinting seven years ago. Arms down by his side, eyes wide, Bolt ushered in a new era of sprinting that night and has managed to keep the show running all the way back to where it began back then.
The numbers, the odds, for once are not in the champion’s favour. Gatlin is the odds-on favourite here in Beijing. Bolt turned 29 on Friday, has been hampered by injury for two seasons and has not run under 9.8sec since the last world championships. Gatlin, in contrast, has posted the four fastest times in the world this year, is unbeaten in 28 races at 100m and 200m and is running faster, at the age of 33, than he was when testing positive for steroids nine years ago, a curiosity that he puts down to having young legs after being banned for so many years. Gatlin was also the last man to beat Bolt, in Rome two years ago.
Wisely, Bolt has refused to be drawn into the widespread condemnation of Gatlin or to accept his role in the passion play of the 100m. It is just a running race, he says, and he is confident of winning it.
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In the infamy stakes, Gatlin was not alone in the Bird’s Nest. Also on view on the opening day of the world championships, in the men’s hammer, was Ivan Tsikhan, whose case highlights the difficulty of banishing a serial offender from the sport.
Tsikhan won bronze for Belarus at the Olympic Games in Beijing but tested positive for testosterone and forfeited his medal. On an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the medal was reinstated on a technicality: the time recorded on the test showed the event start time, not the time of the drug test. In the written report by CAS, it specifically stated that “the verdict should not be interpreted as an exoneration”. In other words, Tsikhan was guilty as charged, a truth later revealed by a retesting of his samples from the 2004 Olympics in Athens, which showed traces of an anabolic steroid.
Tsikhan was banned for two years and retrospectively stripped of his silver medal in Athens, his two gold medals from the world championships in Helsinki in 2005, and the European Championships in Gothenburg in 2006. He is still a double world champion (Paris 2003, Osaka 2007) and, having served his sentence, was back competing in Beijing at the age of 39. Thankfully, Tsikhan failed to qualify for the final.
Gatlin, who could replace Bolt as 100m and 200m champion this week — the longer sprint is on Wednesday and Thursday — promises to be a far more malingering presence in a sport desperate for salvation.