Friday, April 30, 2010
American sprinter Justin Gatlin is anxious to compete again after four-year ban for doping.
Associated Press
Justin Gatlin the sprinter lived life in sub-10-second bursts. Justin Gatlin the banned doper has had four years to obsess about getting that life back.
Four years to think about how his suspension cost him his prime years. Four years to think about how to repair his tattered reputation. Four years to figure out how to catch the fastest man on the planet, Usain Bolt.
Eligible for reinstatement July 24, Gatlin has intensified his training, determined to write a successful final chapter to a career that has included tying a world record, an Olympic gold medal and the humiliation of being caught doping — something he promised would never happen.
“I just hope that 9 seconds of my life from this point on can make up for four years,” the 28-year-old Gatlin said.
The typically reclusive Gatlin realizes he’s in a Catch-22: Post fast times and people will be skeptical. Run slow and they’ll say it only figures.
That he simply can’t fix.
“If you love my performance, so be it and thank you,” Gatlin said. “If you don’t, you don’t. There’s other runners out there for you to love.”
There was a time when Gatlin — not Bolt — was the face of track and the sprinter to beat.
Gatlin was one of the fastest men on the planet then, tying the 100-meter world record of 9.77 seconds, a run that came weeks after a positive test in April 2006 for excessive testosterone and has since been erased.
He won Olympic gold in the 100 meters at the 2004 Olympic Games, followed by world titles in the 100 and 200 a year later.
In an era filled with bad characters and drug cheats, Gatlin was on his way to becoming the sensation of American track, selling himself as the sprinter who was doing things the right way and helping the sport emerge from its dope-riddled past.
A role model for clean competition — until he got caught.
To this day, he says he doesn’t know how a banned substance got into his system.
“I did my check, my background check on the supplements I took since I started professional track, all the way from 2003 to 2006,” Gatlin said. “It just didn’t add up. Everything was the same. The only person that was touching my body at that point and time was the masseuse. I just eliminated the factors and came across a lot of sketchy stuff that I felt wasn’t on the up and up.
“There’s no smoking gun, but I feel that I know I’ve been victimized in some manner,” he added.