Gatlin leaves rivals in his wake
Print Edition
JUSTIN Gatlin ran the fastest 200m of the year at the Monaco Diamond League meeting on Friday as the American recorded the eighth fastest time ever in the distance.
The 32-year-old won in a time of 19.68 seconds, just two weeks after he clocked a season-leading 9.80 in the 100m at Lausanne. Only six men have run faster in the blue riband event.
Gatlin was the 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the 100m and 200m world champion in 2005 before he served a four-year doping ban.
But in the injury-enforced absence of world record holder Usain Bolt this season, the American veteran has seized his opportunity to dominate global sprinting.
Gatlin finished ahead of Jamaica’s Nickel Ashmeade (19.99) and Christophe Lemaitre of France (20.08).
Bolt remains the king of the sport with his world record 19.19.
America’s Tyson Gay, who only returned to action recently after a doping ban, was fourth.
“I started like it was a 100m race and I continued to push off the bend. I am surprised because it was my first time under 20 seconds,” Gatlin said.
In perfect conditions in Monaco, there were a host of other season bests.
In the men’s 800m, Botswana’s Nijel Amos, the Olympic silver medalist, won in 1:42.45, improving the previous best mark of the year of Kenya’s Asbel Kiprop by over a second.
Olympic champion and world-record holder David Rudisha, who won last time out in the Glasgow Diamond League meet, was fifth.
Kenya’s Silas Kiplagat took victory in the 1500m, winning in 3:27.64.
Kiprop was second in 3:28.45 with Ronald Kwemoi third in 3:28.81.
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