Justin Gatlin has explained how watching Usain Bolt break the 100m world record in 2008 made him quit his NFL dream to return to track and field after serving his doping ban.
Justin Gatlin has revealed how watching Usain Bolt break the 100m world record at the 2008 Olympic Games made him ditch his NFL dreams and make a comeback to track and field.
The 2004 Olympic champion had just been slapped with a four-year ban, dating back to 2006 after he tested positive for testosterone. His doping ban erased the world record of 9.77 seconds he had set.
The American sprint icon had given up on his track and field dreams and in 2007, he was one of 28 free agents invited to the Buccaneers’ rookie camp and tried out as a wide receiver but did not make the team.
Incoming Harambee Stars coach Benni McCarthy will get to work with the man he had selected as assistant after his current cut ties with him.
In 2008, Justin Gatlin also attended a tryout for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL and while in training, he received the news that Usain Bolt had just broken the world record. The Jamaican legend had clocked 9.72 seconds to win the 100m at the New York Reebok Grand Prix.
“I was training for football, American football, I was getting ready to be a wide receiver for the NFL and I was in the field working on the routes and then I heard that he (Usain Bolt) broke the world record,” Justin Gatlin recounted that moment on an episode of the Ready Set Go podcast.
“I watched it, like over and over again and at the end of the day, I think that’s where we have commonality is a fact of, it’s about competition.”
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Justin Gatlin has paid homeage to Usain Bolt for reviving his sprinting career after getting back into the sport in 2010.
He explained that watching Usain Bolt achieve such a great milestone made him rethink his decision to join the NFL completely.
A certain desire to go back to track and field was ignited him and he had to just wait two more years before locking horns with some of his serial rivals, including Usain Bolt.
Justin Gatlin explained that he never returned to the sport to break world records but to just compete against the best and test his potential, something that fulfilled him.
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“It’s about preparing because you know you’re going against the best so when I saw him break the world record, I was excited and I was like this dude did that,” Justin Gatlin revealed.
“It actually motivated me, I had the best practice that day but I think what happened that day was that it ignited a fire into me and I was like maybe I want to do track and field again.
“It was never the fact of breaking world records but it was about testing myself against the greats, and Usain Bolt was one of them.”
Justin Gatlin made a comeback in 2010 and struggled in the first two years of his return but at the 2012 London Olympic Games, he announced his comeback, winning a bronze medal in the men’s 100m final.
He became one of Usain Bolt’s greatest rivals and at the 2017 World Championships in London, Great Britain, he finally got the revenge he had always wanted.
Justin Gatlin beat Usain Bolt in the men’s 100m final, with Christian Coleman coming in second. Bolt was forced to settle for third place in the race.
