Duncan Smith: Justin Gatlin's win is a deflating moment

These world championships were supposed to be the moment athletics started to get itself back on the right track.

Justin Gatlin, right, embraces Usain Bolt after winning the final of the men's 100m at the world championships. Picture: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

In a city still feeling the afterglow of the 2012 Olympics, in a country which the legendary Michael Johnson believes has the greatest all-round appreciation of the sport anywhere in the world, where capacity crowds show up for morning sessions of heats and field events, this was supposed to be a turning of the corner.

In 9.92 seconds on Saturday night that all crumbled as Justin Gatlin, a man who has served two doping bans, ruined the showcase moment of the entire event by winning the blue riband men’s 100m and denying the greatest athlete of all time, Usain Bolt, the perfect end to his individual career.

Jeers ringing around the stadium are not what the organisers wanted and IAAF president Seb Coe, who presented Gatlin with his gold medal to a backdrop of much more muted boos and a good deal of polite applause last night, said with understatement that it “was not the perfect script”.

He admitted to his frustration that the organisation he leads cannot impose life bans due to a labyrinthine process that becomes “suffused in legality”.

The background is that Gatlin was first banned for two years in 2001 after testing positive for an amphetamine. He appealed that, claiming that it came from a trace of medication he used for attention deficit disorder and had the suspension cut in half.

In 2006 he tested positive for testosterone-boosting steroids and was awarded an eight-year ban for a second offence, as close to a life ban as can be imposed. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport halved that to four years due to the fact the first ban had been reduced and for Gatlin’s co-operation with anti-doping authorities.

As deflating as Saturday was, it was a sharp reminder that banning Russia, as big a step as that was, is only scratching the surface of a worldwide issue which still threatens to eventually test the watching public’s patience too far.

An irony of Saturday night was that, as spectators vented their boos on Gatlin, the biggest cheerleader for the “villain” turned out to be Bolt himself.

“Over the years I’ve always said, he’s done his time. He’s here, so it’s okay,” said the Jamaican. “I’ve always respected him as a competitor over the years. He has worked hard. He’s one of the best competitors I’ve ever competed with.

“I know that, if I don’t show up he’s always going to win and he showed up here. For me, he deserves to be here because he’s done his time. He has worked hard to get back to being one of the best athletes. For me, I look at him as just any other athlete.”

If there is any shred of sympathy to be found for Gatlin it would be in the fact that he is by no means the only former convicted cheat competing at these championships. Two took part in one of yesterday morning’s men’s steeplechase heats but, like a good few others, managed to slip under the radar of the boo boys and girls.

It should also be pointed out that Bolt was beaten by another man too, the young American tyro Christian Coleman taking silver. But Gatlin just has to accept that in the most high-profile event in the sport, against the greatest, most charismatic exponent it has ever seen, he is going to take the heat.

Gatlin said: “I’m just a runner, back in the sport. Done my time. I’ve come back, I did community service, I’ve talked to kids and tried to inspire them to walk the right path. That’s all I can do. Society does that when people make mistakes and I hope track and field can understand that too.”

In Saturday night’s press conference Bolt reacted angrily when a female journalist asked whether the slow 100m times this year were the result of stricter anti-doping regulations, accusing her of being disrespectful to all three medallists, including Gatlin.

It was perhaps a slightly provocative query late at the end of an emotionally-draining evening but these are questions that will and must be asked. Bolt arrived in London warning dopers that they could kill the sport. Graciousness and civility towards Gatlin on Saturday would have been admirable and what you would expect from the great man. How far he went to defend his tainted conqueror jarred a little and added another bad taste to an already unsavoury outcome.