Rome win puts Gatlin back on track

OLYMPIC 100 metres champion Justin Gatlin returned to form with victory in 9.96 seconds at the Rome Golden Gala yesterday.

In the absence of Jamaica’s world-record holder Asafa Powell, who pulled out of the event yesterday, Gatlin won by a tenth of a second ahead of Ghana’s Aziz Zakari.

Zakari won the 100m at last Friday’s opening Golden League meeting. Defeat meant he lost the chance to share the $1 million jackpot available to any athlete who wins his event at all six Golden League meetings.

Two more Paris winners, Kenyan 1,500m runner Daniel Komen and Russia’s Svetlana Cherkasova in the 800m, also saw their hopes of cashing in on the jackpot slip away.

Komen was overhauled in the last 50 metres by Rashid Ramzi, who crossed the line in three minutes 30.01 seconds to equal the best 2005 performance.

Cherkasova also had to settle for second place, six hundredths of a second behind Marocco’s Hasna Benhassi, the winner in one minute 58.41 seconds.

Earlier, in one of the most exciting races of the evening, one of athletics’ longest unbeaten runs almost came to an end, when world steeplechase record holder, Saif Saaeed Shaheen, was pushed all the way to the line by Paul Koech. Shaheen, who has dominated the event in recent seasons, racking up 19 successive wins dating back to 2002, trailed for most of the final lap, but seized the lead in the final few strides to win in seven minutes 56.34 seconds, three hundredths of a second ahead of the Olympic bronze medallist. It was the fastest time in the world this year and the fifth quickest of all time.

Meanwhile, Hendrick Ramaala will bid to defend his New York City Marathon crown after this year’s IAAF World Championships. The South African’s victory last year was his first major big city marathon success and on November 6 he will aim to become the first back-to-back winner since Kenya’s John Kagwe in 1997 and 1998. “Hendrick’s win last year was a breakthrough performance for him, and he has continued to shine with a string of standout performances,” said race director Mary Wittenberg.

Ramaala, who this year finished third in the London Marathon, will compete in the South African Half-Marathon Championships in Durban tomorrow.