{"id":1644,"date":"2018-05-17T07:24:01","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T07:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/eugene-gatlin-coleman-lead-an-american-1-2-punch-in-pre-classic-100\/"},"modified":"2018-05-17T07:24:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T07:24:01","slug":"eugene-gatlin-coleman-lead-an-american-1-2-punch-in-pre-classic-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/eugene-gatlin-coleman-lead-an-american-1-2-punch-in-pre-classic-100\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugene: Gatlin & Coleman Lead An American 1-2 Punch In Pre Classic 100"},"content":{"rendered":"
Christian Coleman was last year\u2019s fastest on the watch at 9.82 and this year obliterated the indoor world record at 60 meters. He was a whisker behind Justin Gatlin at last year\u2019s World Championships, where legend Usain Bolt was just a bronze medalist in a dazzling finish.<\/div>\n
Christian Coleman, 22, is lightning quick and ready to make his 2018 debut in the century after thrashing the 60 meters indoors with the three fastest times ever plus winning the World Indoor gold. The Georgia native won The Bowerman Award last year as the nation\u2019s top collegian. He won a rare sprint double\/double of NCAA titles \u2013 the 60\/200 indoors and 100\/200 outdoors. The only other man to do so was Gatlin, who saw Coleman break all of his Tennessee school records.<\/div>\n
Justin Gatlin, 36, is a rarity in sprinting, racing with the best at an age when most are retired. He dialed a perfect race last year in London, winning the World Championships with his fastest of the year at 9.92 to become the oldest gold medalist in the event by two years. A year earlier in Rio he was silver medalist \u2013 the oldest medalist again by two years and the best by an American of any age since a 22-year-old Gatlin was gold medalist in the 2004 Athens Olympics.<\/div>\n
Gatlin has both the most Pre Classic wins (five) and Diamond League Trophies (three) in this event. His career collection of major medals in all events totals 15. He has been the top-ranked American for the last six years by Track & Field News.<\/div>\n
Great Britain\u2019s Chijindu Ujah, 24, won last year\u2019s Diamond League Trophy in Z\u00fcrich and was ranked No. 4 in the world by T&FN \u2013 the highest by a Briton since Dwain Chambers was No. 1 in 2002. \u201cCJ\u201d missed making the London 100 final by one spot but a week later led off the British 4×100 with a lead they wouldn\u2019t relinquish en route to a national record 37.47 that was just ahead of the American team featuring Gatlin and Coleman.<\/div>\n
Reece Prescod, 22, didn\u2019t even make the UK 4×100 quartet last year, but the national champion was the only Brit in the 100 final in London. He PRed in the heats at 10.03 and nearly matched it last week in Shanghai, winning the event\u2019s first Diamond League race at 10.04 in the rain.<\/div>\n
China\u2019s Bingtian Su, 27, is the closest anyone has come to catching Coleman this year, earning his first individual medal with a silver in the World Indoor 60. In 2015, he finished 3rd in the Pre Classic, becoming the first from China to run sub-10 at 9.99. It was a time he equaled in the semifinals at the World Championships in Beijing, qualifying him for the final to the crowd\u2019s obvious delight. He later ran the third leg on the silver medal-winning 4×100 team in Beijing as well as the 4tg place teams in Rio (China\u2019s highest finish in the Olympics) and last year\u2019s Worlds. He looked like a repeat winner in the Shanghai Diamond League 100 last week but was edged by Prescod.<\/div>\n
Ben Youssef Meit\u00e9, 31, was a finalist in the Rio Olympics, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire\u2019s first in the 100. He was runner-up to Ujah in the Diamond League final last year as both ran 9.97. He was world ranked No. 8 last year by T&FN after being No. 7 in 2016, the year he set his national record of 9.96.<\/div>\n
American Ronnie Baker, 24, won last year\u2019s Pre Classic with a wind-aided 9.86. This year he is the world\u2019s fastest with a PR 9.97 win at the Mt. SAC Relays a week after joining Gatlin and Coleman on the season\u2019s best 4×100 team thus far at 38.08. Baker, a two-time NCAA Indoor 60 champ while at Texas Christian, won the U.S. Indoor 60 title last year and was bronze medalist in March behind Coleman at the World Indoor.<\/div>\n
Isiah Young, 28, is better known in the 200, in which he made his first major final at last summer\u2019s World Championships and his first U.S. national team for the 2012 Olympics, also in London. This year the former NCAA All-American at Mississippi has focused more on the 100, clocking a wind-aided 9.92 and winning the Drake Relays. He set his legal best of 9.97 in the heats of last year\u2019s U.S. championships.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Men\u2019s 100 Meters<\/b><\/td>\nPersonal Best<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Justin Gatlin<\/td>\nUSA<\/td>\n9.74<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Christian Coleman<\/td>\nUSA<\/td>\n9.82<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chijindu (CJ) Ujah<\/td>\nGreat Britain<\/td>\n9.96<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ben Youssef Meit\u00e9<\/td>\nC\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire<\/td>\n9.96<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ronnie Baker<\/td>\nUSA<\/td>\n9.97<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Isiah Young<\/td>\nUSA<\/td>\n9.97<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bingtian Su<\/td>\nChina<\/td>\n9.99<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reece Prescod<\/td>\nGreat Britain<\/td>\n10.03<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
Tickets for the 44th annual edition of the Prefontaine Classic, to be held May 25-26 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., are available now at www.GoDucks.com<\/link> as well as from 1-800-WEBFOOT.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who will the world\u2019s top sprinter be this year? With a track friendly to fast times and eight...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-1644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1644"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=1644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}