Quite a Mix-Up

Five days later, American sprinter Justin Gatlin found out his world record in the 100-meter was not a world record after all. There was apparently a rounding error:

For five days, Justin Gatlin celebrated his victory in the 100 meters in Doha, Qatar, where he received the title of "World's Fastest Man" after appearing to have lowered the world record by a hundredth of a second last Friday.

But Gatlin did not set a new world record after all, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced yesterday after discovering an error in the results.

The IAAF said it learned late Tuesday that Gatlin's time of 9.766 was incorrectly rounded down to 9.76 when it should have been rounded up to 9.77. That merely ties the world-best time held by Jamaican Asafa Powell, who set the record last June.

Poor guy.