Justin Gatlin celebrated his first relay gold medal on Saturday as the United States lifted their 4 x 100 metres curse with victory at the World Championships.
The star-studded quartet of Gatlin, newly crowned 100m champion Christian Coleman, 200m gold medallist Noah Lyles and Michael Rodgers recorded the second fastest time in history — 37.10 seconds — as they stormed home at the Khalifa Stadium.
The win comes at the tailend of the 37-year-old Gatlin’s career, which has been studded with individual titles but no relay gold medals.
In fact, Gatlin has all too often been part of a pattern of failure that has seen a succession of talented US relay squads fail to add up to the sum of their parts.
Since the 1995 World Championships, the USA has botched no fewer than nine relays in major outdoor championships.
Gatlin revealed on Saturday that the pattern of failure had gnawed away at him for years.
“The gold means so much to me,” he told reporters.
“Probably more than any individual medal I’ve won.
“This gold has eluded me throughout my whole career, through high school, college, it’s always been just right outside the window, just always not able to get the job done and we were successful finally.
“I even felt like maybe it was me. But tonight we all got the job done, we got the stick around.
“I take my hat off to my team-mates, for being brave, and not feeling that stigma of Team USA always dropping the stick, or not finishing, or something always happening or going wrong.
