Justin Gatlin blasted out a warning that he is ready to challenge Usain Bolt’s 100 metres hegemony when he stormed to a lifetime best 9.74 seconds to win the event in the opening Diamond League meeting of the season in Doha, Qatar, on Friday.
In a sizzling night’s action Mo Farah suffered a rare loss, to Ethiopian Hagos Gebrhiwet over 3,000m, Pedro Pichardo and Christian Taylor joined triple jump’s exclusive 18-metre club and Jasmin Stowers continued her heady rise in the 100m hurdles.
As always, however, the 100m was the race everyone wanted to watch, with the big question being whether 33-year-old Gatlin would start this season in the form he finished the last where he posted six of the year’s seven fastest times.
It was a magical night for me. Doha is a great place for me and with that performance I put out a statement
The twice-banned doper wasted no time in answering as he was first out of the blocks and clear by halfway, punching the air after clocking the world leading time and leaving second-place American Mike Rodgers trailing by more than two metres in 9.96.
Jamaican Bolt remains the favourite to retain his world title in Beijing later this year but knows he will have to be right at the top of his game and fully fit to hold off the challenge of the 2004 Olympic champion.
“It was a magical night for me,” Gatlin said. “Doha is a great place for me and with that performance I put out a statement.”
Double world and Olympic distance champion Farah was hoping to do the same in the 3,000m and looked in control until just after the bell.