Gatlin feels like a rookie again!

Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100m champion who served a four-year doping ban, said he feels like a rookie again as he tries to rebuild his career at the age of 29.

Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100m champion who served a four-year doping ban, said he feels like a rookie again as he tries to rebuild his career at the age of 29. "The four years of sanctions have been more difficult from the psychological point of view," the US athlete said.

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"But now I see things differently. I don't think I am better, I'm the same age as Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell. I feel as if I am starting again, as a rookie. I feel my body still has much to give."

Gatlin's four-year drugs ban saw him plummet from sprinting's pinnacle to the athletics wilderness, but he has rebounded to make the US team for the world championships this year. Three months after equalling the world 100m record in 2006, he was suspended for four years after testing positive for testosterone. He said Jamaica's world and Olympic double sprint champion Usain Bolt "is the most powerful sprinter with the most confidence, but at any moment he can show a weakness. Any runner can be beaten. I do not fear anyone".