Gatlin strives for redemption after four-year doping ban ends

Atlanta: In the searing Georgia sun, American Justin Gatlin works alone on resurrecting a sprinting career cast into limbo by a four-year doping ban.

"It will almost be a half decade," the former world and Olympic 100 metres champion said of his last competitive race in 2006.

Gatlin, though, has never contemplated quitting.

In an athletics world where he once was king but where Usain Bolt now rules, the 28-year-old vows to attempt a successful sprinting comeback.

"It is in my heart," Gatlin said. "This is what I do. I feel I owe it to my fans and friends to show them I can still do it."

Temporary wipe-out

A 2006 positive test for the male sex hormone testosterone and its precursors at a 2006 Kansas relay meeting and a subsequent four-year ban temporarily wiped out his career.

"Denial, anger, sadness, a little bit of depression, embarrassment set in," said Gatlin, who always denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs. "Now I am coming to a point where I am more calm, more mellow."

A young son, Jace Alexander Gatlin, born two months ago, has helped give him a better understanding of life.

"Good, bad, indifferent, guilty or not, I have served my time," the 2004 Olympic 100 metres champion said. "I just want to come back and be able to run. To be able to compete like anybody else."

Longer shelf life

While speedy times by Bolt, American record holder Tyson Gay and others have shrunk Gatlin's overall world standing, the long suspension may have lengthened his career.

"Having a longer shelf life is [because] I have been sitting on the shelf," Gatlin said.

How much dust has gathered, the world may discover next month.

If negotiations are successful, Gatlin will make his return in a small meeting in Rakvere, Estonia on August 3.

"He's welcome," meeting manager Taavi Espert said via telephone. "If we find the sponsors to pay for the flight ticket, he will be in Estonia."

Lining up other places to run in Europe may not be so easy. The continent's top meeting promoters have refused athletes like Britain's Dwain Chambers and Gatlin who have served major doping suspensions because of the negative publicity that accompanies them.

"No," said Rajne Soderberg, the Stockholm Diamond League organiser and president of Euro Meetings Track and Field organisation, when asked whether he would ever invite Gatlin.

Free to compete

US Anti-Doping Agency chief executive officer Travis Tygart would prefer to let athletes compete freely once they have served their suspensions.

"An athlete who has served his/her period of ineligibility should be fully reinstated to compete again like any other athlete subject to the WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] code," Tygart said in a statement.

"He is free to compete in any US, world or Olympic championships for which he would qualify," said USA Track and Field (USATF) CEO Doug Logan.

An International Olympic Committee rule that requires an athlete with a long doping ban to sit out the next Games does not apply to Gatlin because he was sanctioned before the policy was passed, a spokeswoman said.