Justin Gatlin has hilariously recounted the 2004 Olympic Games, revealing his two greatest rivals at the time.
Justin Gatlin went into the men’s 100m final at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens knowing that either Asafa Powell or defending champion Maurice Greene would take the win.
Gatlin was used to finishing third behind the duo in all their competitions in Europe and at the Olympics, he was sure the same would happen.
Asafa Powell seemed to be the obvious winner of the race since he had also been beating Maurice Greene in several of their competitions.
ai = d.createElement(‘script’);
ai.defer = true;
ai.async = true;
ai.src = v.location.protocol + o;
d.head.appendChild(ai);
})(window, document, ‘//a.vdo.ai/core/v-pulsesports-co-ke-v0/vdo.ai.js’);
Ferdinand Omanyala has revealed his balanced approach to sprinting rivalries as he also shared his strong bond with Letsile Tebogo, Noah Lyles, Akani Simbine and others.
The American sprint legend was also wary of his training mate Shawn Crawford who had one of the best finishes in history and getting to the final with him meant that Gatlin had to put in more effort.
However, to his shock, Justin Gatlin emerged as the winner of the race, clocking a stunning 9.85 seconds ahead of Francis Obikwelu who came in second in 9.86 seconds. The former champion, Maurice Greene, rounded up the podium, crossing the finish line in 9.87 seconds.
Justin Gatlin’s teammate Shawn Crawford missed the podium narrowly with his 9.89 seconds for a fourth place as Jamaican legend Asafa Powell could only afford a fifth-place finish in the race, clocking 9.94 seconds.
“It was an unbelievable moment and I wasn’t sure I’d take the win. When you watch those races, you always have a certain technique, like the drive phase so like most of the time, you are looking down and hitting the angles correctly,” Justin Gatlin said in an interview on the Run Your Race podcast.
“I knew I was faster than Sean at the blocks since he wasn’t really a good starter and I was worried about Asafa and Maurice.”
“Maurice was the defending champion and Asafa was really the new kid on the block. Asafa was whipping Maurice’s ass up and down in Europe. I knew that because I was getting third to them. That moment was a do-or-die and I just ran and crossed the finish line first.”
)
The three-time world champion insists that Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce still have plenty more to offer the world.
The four-time world champion added that it was a tense moment in the call room since they were just packed together and they were not holding conversations.
He cited an example of National Geographic where there is always tension when male lions for instance, are in the same environment before a fight.
“When I got to the blocks, I just gave it all I got. The call room is definitely going to define if you are a man or a mouse. When we were doing our warm-ups on the track, we gave each other space and by the time you got into that call room, we sat there,” Justin Gatlin said.
)
Letsile Tebogo reflected on his career’s turning point, winning his first global gold in Nairobi.
“It was eerie because it was too quiet and you could drop a pen and hear it. We were all sitting there and you could hear the echoes of other races happening in the stadium.”
Since his gold medal win at the 2004 Olympic Games, Team USA failed to defend the title at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 2012 London Olympics, 2016 Rio Olympic Games and the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Noah Lyles then became the first American to win a gold medal at the Paris Olympic Games since Justin Gatlin.
