Morena Mothupi
Olympic gold medalist, Justin Gatlin has decided to call time on his athletics career, on his 40th birthday.
Gatlin bagged five Olympic medals in his near-20 year professional career.
He got the gold in the 100m, silver in the 4x100m relay and bronze in the 200m, all at the Athens games of 2004.
In 2006, the American sprinter was banned from the sport for four years for testing positive for a banned substance.
Gatlin’s coach, Trevor Graham had eight athletes who had tested positive or received bans for performance-enhancing drugs.
During his ban, Gatlin sought to keep himself busy by taking to the American football field. He was reportedly working out with the Houston Texans in late 2006.
The following year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced that Gatlin was one of 28 free agents taken to their 2007 rookie camp on tryout contracts, and was considered to be the most intriguing unsigned athlete in attendance. He tried out for the team as a wide receiver, but was unsuccessful.
He made his return to the track in 2010, with wins at a couple of meetings, but it was in 2012 when he signaled his intentions to reclaim his place at the big boy’s table.
Gatlin won the 60m title at the World Indoor Championships, then he backed it up by taking the bronze medal at the London Olympics, finishing behind the Jamaican duo of Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake.
The 40-year-old would go on to get two silver medals at the 2013 and again at the 2015 World Championships, then a gold and silver at both the 2017 and 2019 Champs.
His last major medal was the silver at the 2019 Championships in Doha, Qatar. He failed to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Games, because of a hamstring injury that saw him finish last in a qualifying event.
Gatlin’s fastest time in his career is 9.74, which he clocked in Doha, in 2015. That is the joint fifth fastest time in history.
