USAIN Bolt confirmed his superiority over Justin Gatlin, this time over 200m, to secure his second gold medal of the World Championships currently taking place in Beijing, China.
In a scintillating world-leading 19.55 seconds, Bolt drawn in lane six, started strongly, ran a superb curve, before moving away in the straight for a relatively easy win while celebrating before crossing the line for his fourth 200m World Champs title. Justin Gatlin was second, some way back in 19.74 seconds.
“Why I celebrated was that Justin Gatlin had said earlier in the week that he was going to bring out something special. I was, like…you don’t talk about my 200m like that. So I had to prove to him that I am number one,” said Bolt.
“I wasn’t worried. I knew I had to run the first 150m hard and after the first 150m, I looked across and I could see that Justin (Gatlin) was tiring. Then there never was a doubt that I was going to win the race,” Bolt said.
Bolt has now earned 10 gold medals at the World Championships with his overall tally being 12, the most by any male athlete in the history of the championships. American Carl Lewis has 10 medals. Jamaica’s Merlene Ottey is the overall leader with 14 World Champs medals – three gold, four silver and seven bronze.
“It’s a big deal and it means a whole lot to me and I will just continue pushing myself and I will continue doing great things,” he said with conviction.
South Africa’s Anaso Jobodwana snatched the bronze in 19.87 seconds ahead of Alonso Edwards of Panama. Jamaica’s Nickel Ashmeade was eighth in 20.33 seconds while the promising Zharnel Hughes, who is a training partner of Bolt, ended fifth in 20.02 seconds representing Britain.