Athletics-Bolt flirts with failure, Gatlin cruises into final

But Usain Bolt yesterday underlined his status as the fastest man on the planet, crossing the line in his season-best 9.79 seconds to beat his rival by just one-hundredth of a second.

Usain Bolt rode to the rescue of his beleaguered sport once again as he dashed Justin Gatlin’s hopes of 100 metres gold at the World Championships in Beijing.

In a showdown billed by many as good versus bad, given Gatlin has served two doping bans, it was the six-time Olympic champion who proved he is still the fastest man in the world.

Fellow American Trayvon Bromell and Canadian Andre De Grasse shared bronze in third after finishing in exactly the same time (9.92sec).

Watch the race below. “I’m not sure what happened, I just stumbled”. Form appeared to be on Gatlin’s side, but Bolt always performs best on the biggest stage and is the Olympic champion on the 100 metres for a reason. And he still finished in 9.77 seconds, a time Bolt has not come close to this year.

But in the final, when the gun fired and broke the deathly silence in the arena, Bolt rocketed away, running alongside Gatlin for the first half of the race.

Beset by injury problems since spring 2014 when he had surgery on his foot, Bolt did not properly begin his season until June this year and has had to rely on the expertise of German celebrity doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt – nicknamed Healing Hans – to nurse him back to fitness.

Those fears were dispelled in memorable fashion by the big man himself at the Bird’s Nest on Sunday when he won the 100M in a tight finish against Justin Gatlin, a race he admitted was the toughest of his career.

“Of course, everybody wants to come out here and win, but I came out here, got nibbed at the line by great Usain (Bolt)”.

“I felt some pressure as this competition takes place in China”, Wang said.

It’s the third world title for the Jamaican, who earlier had commentators questioning whether he could win the final when he stumbled out of the blocks in the semi.

Bolt has now won 10 of 11 individual global sprint titles since 2008, with the only blip occurring when he false-started in the 100m final at the 2011 world championships. We got the right shoes for me to run in, took our time, got everything done and did some different stretches, it was great and I’m happy to have a doctor like him’.

Lopez pumped his fist in delight as he crossed the line in a personal best time of one hour 19 minutes 14 seconds, with Wang 15 seconds back.

“My aim is to be the number one until I retire”, said Bolt. I love my sport.

“I thought it would have been a little bit too far out of my reach”.