One small stumble and Bolt was beaten

IT took Justin Gatlin 9.94 seconds to dethrone Usain Bolt and throw the sprinting world off its axis.

Usain Bolt, Justin Gatlin

IT took Justin Gatlin 9.94 seconds to dethrone Usain Bolt and throw the sprinting world off its axis.

The victory margin was small, but the significance huge. In the pantomime war between the two, the dirty rascal had stormed the king's castle.

Bolt was only 0.01sec behind in the Diamond League meeting in Rome last night, but he was sluggish and stumbled after five metres. It is not the first time that he has done so, but on this occasion he had a man desperate to seize on any failings rather than a deer in his headlights. Gatlin hung on and the gasp that went around the Olympic Stadium told you everything about Bolt's star status.

To be fair to Bolt, he was quick to congratulate Gatlin and front up. "It's always good to lose," he said. "You learn more from it. I felt confident but didn't know what shape I was in. I guess I need to be stronger at the end of the race. The season goes back to ground zero."

Before anyone starts penning obituaries, we should remember we have been here before. Bolt's training partner, Yohan Blake, beat him twice at the Jamaica trials last summer, but was humbled come the Olympics.

In 2010, Tyson Gay beat Bolt in Stockholm. He's brilliant but mortal, and there are now three co-conspirators - Gatlin, Gay and Blake - who will draw on last night's result.

Given that Bolt wore a crown for this meeting's publicity pictures and Gatlin has served a four-year doping ban, it is an easy rivalry to depict. And Gatlin has been enjoying his role. Told that Bolt said he talks too much, he replied: "I will try to make this answer as short as possible."

That was almost funny, but he expanded. "You see us for nine seconds and then we're gone. This is the only way you're going to hear what we say." In the bowels of the mixed zone, he added: "It's not about liking each other, it's about respect."

Bolt is not short of opinions himself, once suggesting that he could make Cristiano Ronaldo run properly, extolling the benefits of Swedish female handball players and this week getting into a Twitter spat with Mario Balotelli. It was a risible row that highlighted the shortcomings of social media, a bad translation being whipped up, recycled and then reported back as a row. However, what last night showed is that talk and tweets pale alongside genuine sporting drama.

Sport needs its bad boys and girls, of course, and the nearest thing the Great Britain team have is Phillips Idowu. Last year he was involved in a longrunning spat with Charles van Commenee, inevitably involving Twitter but also reality, with the head coach of the time damning him as "the invisible man" and wondering if he would turn up for the Olympics.

Idowu has been quiet, almost invisible, since then, so his return was eagerly awaited. It ended modestly, with seventh place in the triple jump and 16.44metres. He was quick to suggest that his best days are not over.

The best of the British was actually Shara Proctor, who was third in the long jump with her second-best leap outdoors. Her mark of 6.91 bodes well for her prospects this summer, but Brittney Reese, of the United States, underlined her dominance with another win, after a 6.99.

Hannah England, the 1,500metres silver medal-winner at the 2011 World Championships, also showed some form, finishing fourth in a loaded race in which Abeba Aregawi, of Sweden, saw off Genzebe Dibaba, of Ethiopia, with some comfort.

Dai Greene is another who would like to turn the clock back to 2011, but the 400metres hurdles world champion returned from a double hernia with reduced hopes. Fifth place may be easy to scoff at, but the time of 48.81sec was satisfactory, given that it was his first race since London. "I missed a few weeks because of the double hernia injury, but there is plenty of time to get that better," he said.