GATLIN IS A GOLD MEDAL WHINGER
Drug-cheat 100m champ wails: I’m not a bad guy.. the media have turned fans against me
JUSTIN GATLIN stood on the podium, gold medal round his neck, and closed his ears.
He should have been living the dream, letting the sights and sounds of one of the great nights of his life wash over him.
Instead boos rung out around the stadium, just as they had before and after his shock win over people’s favourite Usain Bolt, 30.
Athletics bosses denied having tried to mute the reaction towards a man with two doping bans to his name by staging the ceremony prior to the start of racing, even if the London 2017 website scheduled it for an hour later.
It mattered little. Gatlin was still left railing at what he perceived to be the injustice of it all.
“What do I do that makes me the bad boy?” the American asked.
“Do I talk bad to anybody, do I give bad gestures? I don’t.
“I congratulate every athlete, shake their hand – that doesn’t sound like a trait of a bad boy.
“It sounds like the media wants to sensationalise and make me the bad boy because Usain’s a hero. I know you guys have a black hat and a white hat, but c’mon.
“It’s kinda sad that my boos were louder than other people’s cheers.”
He was entitled to ask why the same reaction is not aimed at the countless other athletes back competing after drug bans.
Yohan Blake, for example, served three months after testing positive for a stimulant in 2009, yet was cheered before running in the same race.
“I’ve served my time and done community service,” protested Gatlin. “I’ve talked to kids and inspired them to walk the right path. That’s all I can do.
“Society does that with people who make mistakes and I hope that track and field does that too.”
The problem is that the legacy cheating leaves behind is one of mistrust. In athletics we can no longer believe our eyes. That, for any sport, is a death sentence.
Which is why Gatlin received little credit for capturing a title he first won in 2005 after beating Jamaica’s Bolt, who is five years younger than him.
Not from the fans and not from Lord Sebastian Coe, the boss of world athletics. “I’m not eulogistic that someone who has served two bans has walked off with one of our glittering prizes,” said Coe. “It’s not the perfect script.”
Coe was happier presenting Jessica Ennis-Hill (above left) her heptathlon gold medal from the 2011 World Championships.
The 31-year-old was cheered to the rafters, after she was denied the medal at the time by Russian drug cheat Tatyana Chernova.
Gatlin’s supporters point out that the Panel of the American Arbitration Association judged his first offence in 2001 to be “at most, a technical or a paperwork violation”. He was given a two-year ban, cut to one year on appeal.
There is no argument the second time however. He tested positive for testosterone.
In 2006 Gatlin was banned for eight years but avoided a lifetime ban for his co-operation with doping authorities. It was then cut to four years on appeal.
Which kept his career alive. And led to the golden opportunity he took on Saturday night.