Controversial American sprinter, Justin Gatlin, has fired a warning to rivals that he will be the man to beat at this summer’s world athletics championships in Beijing, China.
Gatlin lines up at the Rome leg of the Diamond League on Thursday as the man of the moment in the men’s 100m, having recently set a stunning new personal best of 9.74 seconds in Doha last month.
It has also put the 28-year-old American, who won Olympic gold in Athens in 2004 before being handed a four-year ban for doping in 2006, on a Beijing collision course with six-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt.
In the Jamaican’s absence from the fourth event in the 14-leg series, Gatlin will be expected to power to victory in the Italian capital, where he beat Bolt in the men’s marquee event in 2013.
“I want to go out there and dominate each race and that’s what I’ve been doing,” Gatlin told reporters on Wednesday.
While the American stopped short of saying he would be favourite in Beijing in August, he admitted he expects his rivals to know that he will be the man to beat.
“Right now I can’t consider myself favourite because it’s months away. I’m just trying to stay healthy and strong,” added Gatlin.
“But having two world leads does put me in position to say entering a race, ‘OK, I’m the man to go out there and go against’.”
