2017 USATF Outdoor Championships

Justin Gatlin Isn't Done Yet, Beats Christian Coleman For U.S. Title

Justin Gatlin Isn't Done Yet, Beats Christian Coleman For U.S. Title

Justin Gatlin Isn't Done Yet, Beats Christian Coleman For U.S. Title

Jun 24, 2017 by Dennis Young
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​Sacramento, Calif. -- Somehow, a five-time Olympic medalist coming off bronze in Rio who is also the defending U.S. champion was the underdog tonight. But 35-year-old Justin Gatlin was definitely not favored over Christian Coleman in here. Coleman got out to a slow start, though, and never recovered. Gatlin defended his title, Coleman made his first individual senior outdoor team, and NCAA third-placer (and new Nike signee) Christopher Belcher will be joining them in London.

​Complete results (-0.7 mps wind)

​9.95 Justin Gatlin​
9.98 Christian Coleman
10.06 Christopher Belcher
10.10 Jaylen Bacon
10.11 Beejay Lee 
10.17 Mike Rodgers
10.19 Cameron Burrell
10.25 Isiah Young

Coleman had aced every test this year, running his best races at the NCAA indoor and outdoor finals. But for the first time in 2016, he didn't quite put together all of the pieces, and after a strong start, Gatlin walked him down in the last 25 meters. Gatlin, 35, and Coleman, 21, both competed for Tennessee collegiately and are the last two men to pull off the 60/100 (indoor) and 100/200 (outdoor) NCAA quadruples. 

The younger man's 9.82 is still the world leader, so Gatlin has to be feeling good about his chances in London in August. Coleman had said throughout the NCAA season that Gatlin was his role model and that the two men talked often. Coleman is clearly the future king of U.S. sprinting, but Gatlin is hanging in there for one more year. After the race, Coleman told reporters that his new Nike contract--apparently finalized within the last 24 hours--was worth "seven figures."



Between last summer's Olympics and this meet, Gatlin had run just three open races, and they ranged from bad to less bad. He was fourth at the Doha Diamond League in 10.14 seconds, won in Kawasaki in 10.28, and was fifth at Pre in a windy 9.97. But the veteran just knows how to get ready for the U.S. championships. He ran a wind-legal 10.00 in the first round yesterday, 10.04 into a headwind this evening, then 9.95 into a headwind in the final two and a half hours later.

Gatlin's run at the top of U.S. sprinting has been astonishing, and obviously controversial. (He served two separate doping bans, the second a four-year ban from 2006 to 2010.) He has made world/Olympic outdoor teams now in 2004, 2005, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017--every year in the last fourteen that he wasn't serving a doping ban.

Here are Gatlin's results at USAs spanning back to the first Bush term:

​2004: ​2nd 100m, 2nd 200m
​2005: ​1st 100m, 2nd 200m
​2006-10​: banned
​2011: ​2nd 100m
​2012: ​1st 100m
​2013:​ 2nd 100m (behind Tyson Gay whose results would later be stripped for a positive test)
​2014: ​DNC​ (no worlds)
​2015: ​1st 200m (skipped 100m because of his Diamond League bye)
​2016: ​1st 100m, 1st 200m
​2017: ​1st 100m, 200m TBD

All three team qualifiers are returning in the 200 meters, where they'll face stiff competition from Noah Lyles and Lashawn Merritt. Belcher--who, like Coleman, signed with Nike between the prelims and semis--has seen huge improvements in 2017. The North Carolina A&T senior didn't make any NCAA finals in 2016, and his PR at the turn of the year was 10.06 seconds. Now he's run 9.9 and is a credible contender to make the final at the world championships later this summer.