Justin Gatlin Is The Fastest Man In America And Maybe The World

Justin Gatlin Is The Fastest Man In America And Maybe The World

Twelve years after winning Olympic gold, Justin Gatlin is still on top. He won tonight's Olympic Trials 100m in a world-leading 9.80 seconds.

Jul 4, 2016 by Dennis Young
Justin Gatlin Is The Fastest Man In America And Maybe The World
Twelve years after winning Olympic gold, Justin Gatlin is still on top. He won tonight's Olympic Trials 100m in a world-leading 9.80 seconds. Only Tyson Gay has ever run faster wind-legal at the Trials, and Gay missed his first team in a decade tonight.

Right behind Gatlin, 2014 NCAA champion Trayvon Bromell ran 9.84 second to clinch his first Olympic berth. That time is No. 2 in the world and ties Bromell's PR--which he set on this track at the U.S. championships just a year ago. 

Our third Olympian in the 100m is Bromell's Florida high school rival Marvin Bracy, who edged out Mike Rodgers 9.98 to 10.00 for third place.

Gatlin infamously served a four-year doping ban from 2006 to 2010 after lighting the sprint world on fire in his early 20s. In his early 30s, his primary rival has been Usain Bolt. The Jamaican legend ran slower than Gatlin for much of 2015 before beating him by a narrow margin in the world championship final in Beijing. But Bolt may not be able to reprise that victory--he tore his hamstring at this week's Jamaican Trials.

Bolt and Gatlin have won the last three Olympic gold medals in the 100m, with Gatlin's coming in Athens in 2004 when he was just 22. He's 34 now, and the Olympic favorite pending the fitness of Bolt's fibers.