Age just a number to Gatlin

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP):

Sometimes after a particularly gruelling workout, sprinter Justin Gatlin will turn to his younger training partners and inquire: "Are you sore, too?"

It's just an age check. He doesn't feel 37 except on rare occasions. Like at big races when he sees so much youth on the starting line and not the familiar faces from years gone by.

Missing, of course, is his biggest rival, Usain Bolt, the Jamaican standout who rewrote the record book before saying goodbye to track nearly two years ago.

Arriving on the scene, a slew of 20-somethings such as Americans Christian Coleman and Noah Lyles, who present another challenge for Gatlin, the defending 100m world champion.

"I don't think about age. I don't think about being old," said Gatlin, who will compete in the 100m at the US Championships this week in Des Moines, Iowa. "I just feel like a time traveller in a way. I'm still here, still running, still putting down good times, still training really well. Just staying focused on what the goal is."

YOUNG AT HEART

And that goal is to show the kids he's still young at heart. At a Diamond League race in Monaco on July 12, Gatlin won the 100m in 9.91 seconds, holding off Lyles by 0.01 seconds.

"These young athletes, they make me feel young," said Gatlin, who doesn't consider the Tokyo Olympics next summer his finish line as he contemplates racing through the 2021 IAAF World Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

"They're running superfast times that I ran before, so it gives me a target. It gives me a sounding board to know where I have to be and how I'm going to have to compete."

Throughout his career, Gatlin has been a polarising figure. With his doping past -- his four-year suspension ended in 2010 -- Gatlin's been booed (like the night he beat Bolt for gold at the 2017 World Championships in London) and hounded (he gestured towards a heckler bothering his mother in the stands during the medal ceremony at the '15 Worlds in Beijing). He's never let it bother him.

Instead, he lets his performances do most of his talking.

"I'm an enigma," Gatlin said. "I've had my dark times, and I've gone through an area where normally someone who's been away from the sport or had a ban would never come back from. ... I defied those odds to a point where I think that it made people uncomfortable because not only did I come back, but I came back better."