From smh.com.au



Gatlin breezes to the record in Doha last night.

Olympic champion. World champion. Now, Justin Gatlin is the world record holder too.

The American sprinter broke the 100-metre record on Friday with a time of 9.76 seconds at the Qatar Grand Prix. He shaved one-hundredth of a second off the mark of 9.77 seconds set by Jamaica's Asafa Powell on June 14, 2005, in Athens.

"This was a perfect race," Gatlin said. "I am a competitor and I promised I would get the world record and I have done it. I don't go for world records. They come to me."

The 24-year-old Gatlin won the 100m and 200m at the world championships in Helsinki last August. He said on Monday he intended to break the record in Doha.

"It is amazing I did it," Gatlin said. "It took a lot of discipline and dedication. You will see many more performances like this from me in the future."

Gatlin was quick out of the starting blocks and ran even with Nigeria's Olusoji Fasuba for the first 50m. Only in the last 40m did Gatlin surge into the lead.

After crossing the line, Gatlin went over to the stands and hugged members of the US team as the crowd of 10,000 gave him a standing ovation.

He then knelt on the track with a bouquet of flowers presented by a Qatari hostess and posed for photographs next to the electronic scoreboard showing the 9.76 mark.

Fasuba finished second in an African record 9.84 seconds, with Shawn Crawford of the United States third in 10.08.

For breaking the record, Gatlin gets a $US100,000 ($129,160) bonus from the International Association of Athletics Federations.

The Qatar federation said it would chip in an additional $US30,000 ($38,750).

Gatlin's previous best time was the 9.85 he ran in winning the Olympic gold in Athens in 2004, a victory which established him as the new star in world sprinting. He clocked 9.88 in the 100m final at the worlds last year.

When Powell set the record last year, he bettered the mark of 9.79 set by Maurice Greene in Athens in June 1999. Tim Montgomery's mark of 9.78, set in Paris in 2002, was wiped off the books after he was banned for two years in the BALCO doping scandal.

In other results, Tasmanian Donna MacFarlane finished second in the 3000m steeplechase, the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist managing the warm conditions well to record a time of 9.39.36 behind Kenyan Jeruto Kiptum (9.35.65).

Australia's Daniel Batman finished fourth in the 200m.

Chronology of the men's world 100m record:

9.95 - Jim Hines (USA) 14/10/68 at Mexico
9.93 - Calvin Smith (USA) 03/07/83 at Colorado Springs (USA)
9.92 - Carl Lewis (USA) 24/09/88 at Seoul
9.90 - Leroy Burrell (USA) 14/06/91 at New York
9.86 - Carl Lewis (USA) 25/08/91 at Tokyo
9.85 - Leroy Burrell (USA) 06/07/94 at Lausanne (SUI)
9.84 - Donovan Bailey (CAN) 27/07/96 at Atlanta (USA)
9.79 - Maurice Greene (USA) 16/06/99 at Athens
9.77 - Asafa Powell (JAM) 14/06/05 at Athens
9.76 - Justin Gatlin (USA) 12/05/06 at Doha