Few rivalries in sprinting history have carried the weight of Usain Bolt vs. Justin Gatlin! Their clashes at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, where Gatlin tripped up near the end, and the nail-biting 2017 face-off in London where he beat Bolt in the Jamaican’s farewell, were events no track fan wanted to miss. But there have been games within games in their rivalry!

Bolt has always been brutally honest and has never shied away from calling out Justin Gatlin’s mind games over the years. Their rivalry had its fair share of drama, but one moment truly stood out. Yes, we’re talking about the 2011 ‘lane spat’ incident, where Gatlin went too far! For years, Usain Bolt shrugged it off, never seeking closure. But now he has offered his perspective!

For over a decade, people speculated about this race, but Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin have finally put the discussion to rest. So, what happened? Gatlin, who was making his return to competitive sprinting after serving a doping ban, and for the first time since his comeback, he was set to race against Bolt. The highly anticipated matchup took place at the Hanzekovic Memorial in Zagreb in the World Challenge Meeting.

Bolt took a careful approach in his first 100m race since his shocking disqualification at the World Championships. But even with a cautious start, he still came out on top at the Zagreb meet, clocking a season-best 9.85 seconds, spoiling Gatlin’s comeback. Just a month earlier, Bolt had false-started at the World Championships in South Korea, dashing his hopes of defending his title. But then, something unexpected happened! Bolt revealed at, “I’ll never forget it. I ran my race, and as I was coming back, he was walking—he does that. And then he kinda sped across my lane.” Bolt said on the Ready Set Go Podcast, after being asked about the spitting incident from host Rod Green.

It was the kind of psychological battle that often played out between the two fierce competitors. When Green later confronted Gatlin about the moment, the American sprinter was quick to issue an apology! “I apologize, I apologize. Yo, it wasn’t even anything bad! Nah, nah. I just—you know, I do him like that. He’s always hard on me, I’m always hard on him.”

Despite that moment, Bolt clearly said that, he recognized the move for what it was—an attempt at intimidation. “I just looked up and smiled because I knew he was trying to intimidate me. But I wasn’t worried about him. The thing is, I was so focused. I don’t even think at that moment I was trying to do any of those little petty mind games, you know what I’m saying?” But Usain Bolt has unexpectedly received some motivation from Gatlin as well!

Its not just mind games between Justin Gatlin and Usain Bolt

For once, Usain Bolt wasn’t the favorite. Imagine that. The fastest man in history—the undisputed king of sprinting—was walking into the 2015 World Championships as the underdog. Justin Gatlin was tearing up the track that year, clocking an eye-popping 9.74 in the 100m and consistently dipping below 9.8 seconds. Bolt? His best was 9.87, and his injury-riddled season left him playing catch-up.

Bolt wasn’t sure he had it in him. Then, something unexpected happened. Sitting just two chairs away in the warm-up area, Gatlin spoke.“Yo, you ready to go?” Bolt froze. Justin Gatlin had never spoken to him before a championship. Not once. And now, before the biggest race of the year, he was making conversation? “And I looked at him like, huh? I was surprised because I didn’t expect him to say that. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool,” Bolt recalled on the Ready Set Podcast.

Then Gatlin spoke again. And that’s when it clicked for Bolt, “Ah, shit. He’s nervous. And that helped because now I know he’s nervous. I’m nervous too.” In a sport decided by fractions of a second, doubt is deadly. “And that helped,” Bolt later recalled. “Because now I know. I’m nervous, but he’s nervous too.”

In a sport decided by hundredths of a second, doubt is deadly. Gatlin led for the initial 50-60m, but when it mattered most, Bolt surged ahead, crossing the line in 9.79 seconds. Just 0.01 seconds separated them. The difference? It was just the vest.