The dream comes true for Justin Gatlin

A superb winner of the closest 100m final in the history of the Olympic Games American Justin Gatlin capped his Athens campaign with the 200m bronze and the sprint relay silver medals. Bob Ramsak portrays the 22-year-old sprinter who says he's in the sport to conquer the world.

A year ago, Justin Gatlin sat at the Stade de France in Paris as just another spectator at the World Championships. With injury knocking him out of last year’s national championship, the promising young American talent - despite solid performances leading up to Paris - was kept from the world stage.

Nevertheless, displaying patience that few young twenty-somethings possess, Gatlin wasn’t too troubled with his role as spectator.

“It just wasn’t my time to be World champion”, the cheerful, mild-mannered Floridian said then.

12 months later, the 22-year-old would leave the 2004 Olympics with three medals - the most heavily decorated athlete on the men’s side - capped by his victory in one of the most unforgettable 100 metre races in history, and earning him the right to carry the mantle of ‘World’s Fastest Man’ for the next four years.

“I’m just honoured to be in one of the best races in history, probably the fastest Olympic race ever,” Gatlin said. “I knew I had it ten metres before the line, I felt that I was way out there. I knew the race was obviously very close, but I felt so strong coming to the line.”

Screaming with joy as he crossed the line, the emotion of the moment didn’t escape him either.

“I was just shocked that my dream came true. I’ve been watching people make history, people like Maurice Greene, Marion Jones, people who’ve done it time and time again. I just want to be part of that, and I knew that in that point in time, I did it.”

The setting of his victory was as electrifying as the race itself. With the infectious crescendo of “Zorba’s Theme” blasting in the background, the capacity crowd at Olympic Stadium transformed the usually tense and rigid pre-race ritual into a celebration befitting the Olympic Games. Perhaps unwittingly, Gatlin too strutted along with the beat prior to the race, in his mind likening the theme’s climactic overture to the powerful finish he displayed 9.85 seconds after the starter’s gun sounded.

So physically powerful and emotionally draining were the final few metres, that Gatlin admits he barely remembers them.

“Ten metres before the line, I couldn’t feel anything”, Gatlin said. “It was all a blur”.

Besides its place as the glamour event of the Olympic Games, Gatlin said his victory in the 100 - relegating pre-race favourites Maurice Greene, the defending champion, summer sensation Asafa Powell, and training partner Shawn Crawford to the roles of the conquered in the process - took on added significance, not only because he was overlooked in the lead-up to Athens, but because he was still widely viewed as a stronger half lap sprinter as well.

“I was more emotional in the 100 because I knew a lot of people counted me out from the beginning,” he said “They probably didn’t think I was even going to make the team in the 100. So going in there, I had a lot of incentive to show my true colours in the 100”.

But that was only the beginning for Gatlin, who went on to capture the bronze in the 200 metres, and a silver in the 4x100 metre relay. All in all a fabulous outing for an athlete just finishing his second international season.

“The only thing that would have made me happier would be having three golds”, Gatlin said. But again, displaying his patience, the pleasant, mild-mannered sprinter added with a smile, “But I’m happy having one of each, a full collection. They’re each significant, and I cherish all of them in different ways. I know what to experience next time to reach a medal”.

The significance in the 200m, he said, was his role in an American podium sweep, the event’s first in two decades, and the sixth overall for an American trio.

“After the US Trials we wanted to make the sweep in the 200,” Gatlin said after his 20.03 dash, finishing just a centimetre or two behind team-mate Bernard Williams. “That was the goal. We talked about if for weeks on end. This is just the pinnacle, the Olympic Games. And to come here and sweep, what else can we ask for?” Issuing an invitation for a return engagement in Beijing - a “family reunion” he called it - he added, “We want to go out there in the next Olympic Games and do the same thing again”.

Harbouring no disappointments, Gatlin was thrilled with his third place finish, after an arduous eight races in six days.

“I’ve never run eight races like this in my life. This is the Olympic Games, and you’ve got the best athletes in the world. It’s going to tire you out. I’m running on fumes right now, and I’m running on heart. So I’m very content with having the bronze. I’m 22 years old. The bronze shows that I have much more to work on, so I can go out there and get the gold in the 200 the next time”.

From early in his youth in Brooklyn and later in Pensacola, Florida, where he would hurdle fire hydrants in the streets and climb and jump from furniture in his home, Gatlin seemed destined for Olympic glory. He was also the household oddball of sorts. His older brother and two sisters were not at all involved in sports, and would torment Gatlin as only siblings can.

“They used to tease me that I was adopted”, he recalls. “I was always rambunctious when I was a little kid. I would be on top of the television and jump off of it, and do all kinds of weird things like that. I was always athletic, and I just wanted to put my focus on track and field. What more can you do in track and field than be athletic and rambunctious?”

That rambunctiousness paid off. A national standout in high school, Gatlin’s all-around talents were displayed at the traditionally competitive Florida State high school championships in 2000, where he scored a 100m / 110m hurdles / 300m hurdles triple win, and added a third place finish in the long jump for good measure. His talents and interest in art and graphic design, along with his on-the-field exploits, earned him a scholarship offer to the University of Tennessee.

From the outset of his brief collegiate career, Gatlin was widely regarded as the most exciting young speedster in years to emerge from the traditionally strong American sprint scene. In 2001 he ended his freshman year as the NCAA champion in the 100 and 200 metre dashes. The following year be became the first man since Bobby Morrow, the 1956 Olympic 100 metre champion accomplished the feat in 1957, to successfully defend both titles. His departure to the professional ranks that autumn was inevitable, and after directing all his energies to his career, under the astute eye of coach Trevor Graham, his success immediate.

Beginning with a World Indoor title in the 60 metres, Gatlin briskly established himself as a major international force among sprinters in 2003. Despite missing an appearance at the World Championships, he nonetheless won six of his 11 races. Highlights included a high profile win in Stockholm over one of the strongest fields of the year, the first sub-10 seconds of his career in Zurich (9.97), and a season-capping win at the Moscow Challenge, in which he collected one of the sport’s largest-ever pay-days, a cool half million US dollars.

This season he prepared for the notoriously difficult US Olympic Trials with solid performances in Europe, winning the 200 in Ostrava, and finishing runner-up in the 200 in Bergen. The preparation apparently worked. In Sacramento, Gatlin was second in both sprints, clocking 9.92 and 20.01, both personal bests. A minor toe injury sustained in the semi-final of the longer dash, coupled with the exhaustion of the gruelling Trials process, hobbled Gatlin slightly in London (where he finished sixth) and Zurich (third). But while pre-race attention in Athens was aimed elsewhere, Gatlin said that he never viewed himself as an outsider at Olympic Stadium.

“I never feel like an underdog. I go out there and feel like I’m a champion all the time. I always feel that I’ve earned the respect to step on that line.”

An avid fan of all track and field events - “You never know what’s going to happen,” he said “that’s what makes track & field so exciting” - Gatlin aims to take his new-found glory and the accompanying responsibilities and duties of an Olympic gold medallist, and transcend athletics circles, to bring his craft to the global sporting forefront. 

“I want to show how, in track and field, how hard we work out there,” he said “that Maurice goes out there, and I go out there, and Shawn goes out there, and we work hard for six hours every day. We do what we have to do to prove that we are the best… to prove that to all of you, and delight all of you when we run those fast times. I want to show the world that track and field has more to offer than you expect. I really want to bring positivity to the sport”.

Looking back, Gatlin said the past couple years, from his brief collegiate career to his victory in Athens, have been an emotional roller coaster ride, whose rises and dips he’s managed quite well. The primary difference this year in his growing process, Gatlin said, was his steadfast focus and budding maturity.

“I had a lot of injuries last year, my first after college, and that emotionally drained me”, he said “I wasn’t fearless, I wasn’t going out there to rip up the track. But now, now I can say that I have that back. And now, thanks to my training partner and my coach, I can go out there and conquer the world”.

Published in IAAF Magazine Issue 3 - 2004