Ethiopian fans shout, construction workers in Doha invited to the Khalifa stadium, and rescue this Doha World Cup from the utmost silence, but 100 meters arrive, the most media distance in recent decades, and without African runners the stands empty and there is no one to assess whether Christian Coleman is already a villain. Maybe he has been convicted by the fan or maybe he was saved by a legal argument. Between June 2018 and April 2019, three anti-doping controls were skipped, which is equivalent to a positive one, but their lawyers dodged the sanction and now the sprinter lives in the limbo of history. Two years after presenting himself as the first successor of Usain Bolt - of the many that will come -, Coleman is already another controversial character in search of redemption and as some compatriots who preceded him, Tyson Gay or Justin Gatlin , he has a gold in the World as an argument.
This Saturday he won in a final of heat and anger with a time of 9.76 seconds - his best mark, is placed as sixth fastest in history -, and celebrated it sick. An eternal cry that lasted 40 meters of braking, very hard blows to the chest and gestures of 'here I am'.
That has been his main change in the last year. Frustrated American football receiver, rejected by the best universities for low (1.75 meters now), keeps his prodigious start - he is a world record holder of the 60 meters 'indoor' - but he is no longer the reserved and happy young man he was. He is now an angry man. He appears in the Doha tartan and clenches his jaw. The TV focuses on him and he returns the gesture: he grimaces and points straight at the camera. The rest of the podium's occupants, Gatlin himself (9.89) and André De Grasse (9.90) almost did not congratulate them. With hardly any public and, therefore, without applause or booing, Coleman felt this Saturday that he had the world against him and acted accordingly. In fact, in the mixed zone, the sprinter just stopped and in a hurry he left to prepare his next challenge: this same Sunday the 200-meter series begins whose final will be Tuesday. There he will meet his compatriot Noah Lyles who is his antagonist in everything: he is a cheerful boy, dancer, charismatic.
"I only have one message for my followers: I am clean. In fact I do not take anything, neither legal nor illegal. I do not know what else to say," said Coleman on television just before the World Cup and thus confirmed his communicative involution, his way to seriousness that characterizes those that the public points out as evil.
Born east of Atlanta 23 years ago, his parents discovered his speed at two years old, when he ran away from the vacuum cleaner, and since he was four years old his older sister Camryn served as his spokesman at the school. As he hardly spoke, she helped him communicate with the rest until he entered the football team and he just needed to play, score, amaze, to be popular. In fact, he was chosen representative of the students of his school, the public Deerwood Academy, without giving a single speech.
When all the universities in Division I of the NCAA refused to give him a scholarship as a recipient, Coleman began his journey to become the best sprinter on the planet and, as an inspiration, he always kept words dedicated to him by his father Seth, deep Baptist believer like him: "You must expect God to make you grow. Until then keep motivated and keep trying." Now, after the three dodged controls, he should remain very motivated, he must continue to work hard to be remembered as a great sprinter and not just be a controversial character, one more.
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