ATHLETICS NEWS - Justin Gatlin pipped Japan's Yoshihide Kiryu to win the men's 100 metres as fellow American Michael Norman fired a world championship warning with a superb 200m at the Golden Grand Prix Osaka on Sunday.
The 37-year-old Gatlin produced a strong finish to clock 10 seconds flat, the reigning world champion dipping at the line to edge out Kiryu by a hundredth of a second at the IAAF world challenge meet in Osaka.
Indonesia's world under-20 champion Lalu Muhammad Zohri broke his own national record as he took third in 10.03 – the fastest time ever recorded by an athlete from Southeast Asia.
While Gatlin targets one last hurrah at the world championships in Doha later this year, Norman laid down a marker by winning the men's 200m in a meet record 19.84 seconds, shaving 0.03 off the mark Namibia's Frankie Fredericks set 20 years ago.
The runaway victor, who last month clocked a personal best of 43.45 in the 400m, left Yang Chun-Han trailing in his wake, the Taiwanese runner-up in 20.50.
Ominously for his rivals, Norman insisted that he can still get faster.
