This was published 3 years ago
Life after Usain Bolt: who can be the fastest of them all?
The successor to Usain Bolt could be the predecessor to Usain Bolt. The man who is as likely as any, in a wide-open field, to win the first Olympic 100 metres gold medal since Bolt retired could in fact be the last man to win an Olympic 100m gold medal before Bolt arrived.
Justin Gatlin. The old man of athletics could make history in a way not even Bolt made history on the track.
Who will take over Usain Bolt’s mantle? Credit: AP
Bolt won gold in the marquee 100 at the Rio, London and Beijing Games before retiring. Gatlin won it in Athens in 2004.
Gatlin has served two drugs bans. The first, for two years, was when he was at college for amphetamine that he said was in drugs he took for ADD. The second was a four-year ban after testing positive to testosterone that he said was in cream a massage therapist had rubbed into his buttocks. The old wrong-cream-on-the-bum defence.
Gatlin is a five-time Olympic medallist and 12-time world championship medallist. In 2016 he made his comeback after the second drugs ban and became the oldest man to win an Olympic 100 medal when, at 34, he won silver behind Bolt. Then a year later he crashed Bolt’s farewell parade at the London world championships when he beat Bolt home for gold.
Four years later he still can’t be ruled out for Olympic gold. In 2019, the last year of normal, pre-COVID competition, he ran four of the 13 fastest times in the world.
Incredibly, Justin Gatlin could resume the mantle that he held before Bolt’s extraordinary career began.Credit: AP
At 39, Gatlin would become the oldest man to earn an Olympic medal in any race on the track if he reaches the podium in Tokyo.
But if not the old man of athletics, then who is the one to follow Bolt?
We thought we had an answer to that question: Christian Coleman.
But now we don’t.
Coleman, the fastest man in the world for several years, won the world championship two years ago in 9.76 seconds. But the American sprinter will not be in Tokyo. He is banned.
Coleman failed three whereabouts tests and was banned for two years, reduced to 18 months on appeal, but he is still out of the Olympics.
So Coleman is not the new messiah. He is a naughty boy.
In these COVID-19 times it’s more difficult than usual to shape a field for the final because competition and travel around the world has been disrupted. We know less than normal about how all athletes have prepared and the shape they are in. That is true across all sports.
That field for the final of that world championships that Coleman won two years ago provides the most likely clue to some of the final eight for the Tokyo Olympics final.
Gatlin won silver, Canada’s Andre De Grasse bronze while South Africa’s Akani Simbine was just outside the medals, followed by former world champion Yohan Blake (Jamaica), Britain’s Zharnel Hughes, Italian Filippo Tortu, while another Canadian Aaron Brown was last in 10.08. Not much split the field.
One thing that can be assumed is that there will be at least one if not all three Americans in this year’s final.
While Gatlin is a storied figure and has broken 10 seconds in his first two races this season, three other eligible Americans have run faster than him this year.
The four fastest, and indeed six of the seven fastest, times run in the world this year have been by Americans. Unfortunately, for the Americans they can only have three runners nominated to compete in the event.
The fastest man in the world in the past year is American Trayvon Bromell, a finalist in Rio. In May, he ran 9.88 in a race in which he beat De Grasse.
Noah Lyles has been a next-generation favourite after winning the world championship in the 200 in Doha in 2019, when he chose not to run the 100 despite only Coleman running a quicker 100 than Lyles’ 9.86 that year in a Diamond League meet.
He is, like the other Americans, no guarantee of making the US team for the 100 given the high level of national competition. Ten of his countrymen have recorded quicker 100 times than Lyle’s best this year of 10.08.
Lyles has not decided if he will attempt to run the 100 in Tokyo. If he chooses to run it and finishes top three at the US trials he has to be a chance for the gold.
The US Olympic trials in June will have as much say in who is on the starting blocks in the 100 final as the Olympic heats, quarters and semi-finals. Times over the past year count for nothing in the US system, which demands you turn up to the US trials and finish in the top three.
But the past three Olympics were not just Bolt-dominated, they were Jamaica-dominated. Apart from Bolt, they also had world champions Asafa Powell and Blake.
Blake won silver to Bolt’s gold at the London Olympics a year after winning the world championship when Bolt was sensationally disqualified. He remains a threat even if his best time for the past year is just a stroll at 10.27.
Right now, the fastest Jamaican is Nigel Ellis, whose 10.04 is the 17th quickest for the year, just ahead of Australia’s Rohan Browning, whose 10.05 is 18th this year.
Browning is not making up the numbers in Tokyo. Sure, to be a serious threat for the final he would want to be breaking 10 seconds, but if you take out the five Americans with quicker times than him who cannot make the US team he comes in as 13th this year.
It is not parochialism to suggest Browning could make the final.
The fastest non-American in the world this year is Benjamin Azamati-Kwaku, a 23-year old from Ghana who ran 9.97 in Texas in March.
But if you dig a little deeper into the top 10 fastest runs this year and look beyond the raw time, Simbine’s 9.99 was one of the most impressive runs. He clocked that running into a headwind of three metres per second.
To get an idea of the strength of that wind, if he had the same wind at his back it would have been an illegal time, the wind deemed so helpful that the time couldn’t be counted.
The only other runner to break 10 seconds this year running into a headwind was China’s Bingtian Su (9.98), but the wind that day was a less punishing -0.9.
Simbine’s time was the same as Canadian champion De Grasse, who was long considered a contender to take over from Bolt. He won silver in the 200 in Rio and bronze in the 100.
So the question this year is not if anyone can beat Bolt, but who will be the bolt from the blue?