By Romaine Soh
Even professional athletes like Justin Gatlin have pre-race jitters.
Before his 200-meter final on Saturday, he woke up at 4 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. He was worrying about the ankle and quad injuries he had been dealing with all season, forcing him to wear an ACE bandage on his quad each time he raced.
And before the race, he thought, “If my leg’s gonna give, it’s gonna give now.” He told himself, “At least I’m on the team – I got my ticket already.”
He turned on the jets off the curve to win the race at the U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials in 19.75 seconds. LaShawn Merritt, a quarter-mile specialist, was second in 19.79 seconds. Ameer Webb clinched the last spot on the U.S. Olympic team with his third-place finish of 20 seconds flat.
Though Gatlin was assigned the outermost lane, which meant that he could not see his competition, this did not stop him from pulling off a successful double. Last Sunday, he was crowned the 100-meter champion.
“With about 40 to 45 meters to go, I could start seeing LaShawn’s legs coming,” said Gatlin. “I just had a flashback of Beijing happening all over again. I was like ‘Oh, no, we not!’”
At last year’s IAAF World Championships in Beijing, Gatlin had seemed to be in the lead until world record holder Usain Bolt blasted past him in the final 50 meters. Gatlin settled for the silver.
Right before Gatlin raced, a thrilling men’s 5,000 meters saw Bernard Lagat making his fifth Olympic team as he powered down the home stretch to win the race. Lagat, 41, had dropped out of the 10,000 meters last week, and this was his last chance to go to the Rio de Janeiro Games.
“If Lagat has the guts to go out there and do what he needs to do at his age, I can go out there and do what I need to do, especially in lane eight,” said Gatlin.
Gatlin said this year’s 200-meter field felt weird because there were quarter milers like Merritt stepping down in distance, along with the standout high schoolers.
“I remember in the semis, LaShawn came up to me and said ‘Yeah, man, this is pretty fun. It’s only half of my real race,’” said Gatlin. “I was like ‘OK, thanks LaShawn.’”
Merritt’s main focus in the Olympics will still be the quarter mile. He said he plans to do a little bit of training to figure out how to execute in the 200 meters, half the distance of his pet event.
“It’s still a little foreign to me, but I have some speed and I have some endurance,” said Merritt. “I’m excited I was able to handle it as well as I did. My body feels great.”
Noah Lyles, one of two high schoolers who made it to the finals, set a new high school record of 20.09 seconds to finish fourth. Michael Norman, the other high schooler, finished fifth with a new PR of 20.14 seconds.
“Those guys are great,” said Merritt. “I’ve never seen those times come from high schoolers.”
Norman said the previous two rounds had fatigued him, which caused him to wake up this morning feeling tighter than normal.
“Coming off the curve, I feel that I didn’t have that extra umph,” he said.
This will be Norman’s last time donning the Vista Murrieta singlet as he trades it in for the red and yellow uniform of USC, where he said he plans to pursue a kinesiology degree. After the trials, he will attend USC orientation before flying out to the IAAF under-20 championships in Poland on July 14.
“I didn’t have any expectations coming into the race,” said Norman. “I was just like, ‘Now that you’ve gotten here, just run and have a great time.’ I ended up kind of exceeding my expectations, making it to the finals.”
Besides veterans Gatlin, Merritt and Tyson Gay, who are in their 30s; the rest of the field is in the early 20s.
“It’s gonna be a rivalry for years to come,” said Norman.
