Latest update February 20th, 2025 12:39 PM
Usain Bolt crests Legend status as he wins his third Olympic 100m gold medal
Daily Mail – Usain Bolt is still the fastest man in the world.
The Jamaican sprint superstar beat out American Justin Gatlin for the gold in the 100m final race last night, running the track in 9.81 seconds.
The Jamaican sprint superstar beat out American Justin Gatlin for the gold. (AFP/Getty Images)
Gatlin took home the silver medal while Andre De Grasse of Canada nabbed the bronze.
Bolt is now just two races away from completing the ‘triple triple’ and winning three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay.
The race was billed as an epic head-to-head between Bolt and Gatlin, who has one Olympic gold medal and a career racked with drug controversy.
But Bolt proved in the semifinals that he wasn’t going to relinquish his title easily.
He appeared to be cantering along and mocking his opponents as first he looked to his right and then swung his head to his left to look at his rivals behind him, trying to keep pace.
He crossed the line in 9.86 seconds, the fastest time in the three heats, with a huge grin and pointing at the cameras, clearly saving his best for the final.
Bolt had received the loudest cheers inside the Olympic Stadium, while New Yorker Gatlin was booed and jeered when his name was called at the start.
Gatlin, evidently angry at his reception, crossed the line in 9.94secs and stormed off straight down the tunnel as the other runners stayed on the track shaking hands.
The 100m final was not only the most eagerly awaited event of Rio 2016, but a personal grudge match between the Jamaican and American ace sprinters.
Bolt, who will be 30 on Sunday, said Gatlin would ‘feel his full wrath’ when they finally came head-to-head on the Olympic track.
Bolt was unimpressed when Gatlin focused on the six-times Olympic gold medalist’s slight injury worries earlier this summer, claiming the champion had been given ‘a medical pass’ to compete after missing the Jamaican trials.
‘He’s injured, gets a medical pass, that’s what his country does. Our country doesn’t do that,’ Gatlin was quoted as saying in the American press.
Bolt, who was hailed as the savior of his sport after his 100m and 200m victories ahead of Gatlin at last year’s World Championships in Beijing, soon hit back.
‘For me I felt it was a joke – I felt it was a disrespect they think I’d back out of a trials,’ he said.
‘I’ve proven myself year on year that I’m the greatest. I laughed when I heard it; I was disappointed, especially in Justin Gatlin.’
Team US Olympic officials have pleaded for America to finally forgive Gatlin as he bids to become the fastest man in the world.
Gatlin won gold in 2004 at the Athens games, but was later convicted of a doping offence and served a four-year ban, returning to competitive athletics on 2011.
It was the second controversy to descend on the 34-year-old track star after he was banned in 2001 from international competition for two years.
He tested positive for amphetamines, but later successfully appealed that the positive test had been due to medication that he had been taking since his childhood, when he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.
But the sprinter has not been able to shake off his accusers as he attempts to give Bolt a ‘run for his money’ after claiming bronze against the Jamaican in London.
And Gatlin’s coaches are insistent beating Bolt to the Olympic title should not be seen as a ‘tainted gold.’
Tracy Sundlin, who is in charge of the US track and field men’s team, told Daily Mail Online: ‘That would be wrong. Justin is a remarkably talented athlete who clearly made a mistake at some point.’
‘He has paid dearly for that mistake. He has owned up to that mistake.’
‘If people saw what he is doing and the amount of effort… if they saw his heart, I think they would feel as I do.’
‘People do forget how truly special a talent he was. He was a world class hurdler as well as a sprinter.’
‘He has done things that people don’t understand and appreciate.’
Pic –
– The Jamaican sprint superstar beat out American Justin Gatlin for the gold. (AFP/Getty Images)
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