Timing error costs Gatlin sole ownership of record

The most intense rivalry in sprinting gathered steam Wednesday when the world's fastest man turned out to be the world's fastest men.

Because of a timing error, Olympic champion Justin Gatlin didn't break the world 100-meter mark last weekend after all. Instead, he now shares the record with Jamaican Asafa Powell, who set it at 9.77 seconds last year.

They'll get their first chance to start sorting it out May 28 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. -- just not in the same race.

Both will run the 100 at the Prefontaine Classic, but the event will be divided into two eight-man fields, with Gatlin in one and Powell in the other, meet promoter Tom Jordan said.

That creates the possibility of one of the sprinters watching in person while the other breaks the world record, or even one record-breaking race followed by another.

The two can't race against each other, Jordan said, because they are contractually obligated -- for a high fee -- to a match race June 11 at the Norwich British Union Grand Prix in Gateshead, England.

Gatlin, the 24-year-old American who won the Olympic 100-meter gold medal in Athens and is the reigning 100- and 200-meter world champion, was told he had broken the record with a 9.76-second clocking in Doha, Qatar, last Friday night.

But the sport's governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, announced on Wednesday that there had been a timing error, and Gatlin actually ran 9.77, matching Powell's record set in Athens, Greece, last June 14.

"It is very disappointing to me that it has taken five days to determine the official time of a race with this significance," Gatlin said in a statement.