Legendary American sprinter Justin Gatlin is, quite simply, one of the greatest athletes of all-time — he’s certainly the most decorated 100-metre sprinter ever, with a haul of three Olympic medals and five World Championship ones, that’s before you get to the medals he won for the 60 metres, 20 -metres, and 4×100-metre relay. In 2021, aged 39, he attempted to qualify for his fourth Olympic Games, but sadly a hamstring injury put paid to his ambitions.
Gatlin first came to prominence on the international stage in 2003 when he won his first world championship, taking gold in the 60 metres at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, UK; this was just a fortnight after he had become US national champion for the first time. The following year saw him qualify for his first Olympics, and he took the 100-metre gold in Athens, finishing in 9.85 seconds, just one-hundredth of a second behind the world record. He also helped the Team USA relay team to take silver. Unfortunately, he received a four-year athletics ban in 2006 after failing a doping test, but he spent the time volunteering with schools and almost took up a career in the NFL, trying out with various major teams.
In 2010, Gatlin made his athletics comeback and picked up where he’d left off, winning medals in practically everything he entered. He competed in the 2012 Olympics, winning bronze and setting a new personal best. The following year, he became one of the few runners who can claim to have beaten Usain Bolt (even if it was by one-hundredth of a second) to take gold at the Golden Gala meet in Italy. He won his final Olympic medal in 2016, finishing 0.08 seconds behind Bolt, and his final World Championship the following year.
