Olympics 2016

Day Nine

Review

by David Butcher

This should be quite a showdown. All the attention before tonight’s 100m final will be on Usain Bolt, sprinting’s Mr Clean. But pantomime villain Justin Gatlin is there to spoil the party. Gatlin is a twice-suspended drugs cheat, and not an obviously repentant one. At the age of 34 his running times are better than in his drug-assisted twenties.

At last year’s World Championships, Bolt beat Gatlin only by a straining dip for the line, so if Gatlin’s bio-mechanics specialists in the USA team have been able to shave a millisecond off each stride, he might just make himself the most unpopular man in Rio.

Summary

Jason Mohammad introduces further coverage on day nine of the Olympic Games. The flagship event of the athletics schedule - the men's 100m final - takes place at the Olympic Stadium at 02.25, and barring injury or a huge shock, should see another meeting between world record holder and two-time defending champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica and the USA's Justin Gatlin. Before then, there is the men's high jump qualifying at 00.30, the women's 400m semi-finals at 00.35, the women's triple jump final at 00.55, the men's 100m semi-finals at 01.00, the women's 1500m semi-finals at 01.30 and the men's 400m final at 02.00. Grenadian Kirani James is the defending 400m champion and will start among the favourites, alongside world champion Wayde van Niekerk of South Africa and American LaShawn Merritt, with Team GB's European champion Martyn Rooney one of the outside bets.