Final test:Justin Gatlin upstaged Usain Bolt in the latter's final solo race,taking gold.Credit:Matt Dunham
Officially the 100m medal ceremony was not brought forward. It was just a coincidence,then,that it took place 10 minutes before the action started.
So the International Association of Athletics Federations would have been happy to bury Bolt's medal presentation in the 6.50pm slot? Sure they would.
Gatlin's world title win,at 35 - and 13 years after his Olympic gold in Athens - was a kind of zombie rising from the Balco scandal in America,which claimed Marion Jones,who went to jail for perjury,Tim Montgomery and the pre-eminent coach of that era - Trevor Graham,another convicted perjurer who was banned from athletics for life.
Graham was also Gatlin's coach,and when the New York Times visited him at home in 2009,they reported:"On the wall to his right hung a framed,autographed track suit,the one Justin Gatlin wore when he won the 100-metre gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens."