Coleman eyes improvement after Stanford sizzler

Christian Coleman believes he can go faster after scorching to the fastest 100m time of the year at the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meeting on Sunday.

The 23-year-old US sprinter signalled once again he will be the man to beat at this September's World Championships after surging home in 9.81sec at Stanford University on Sunday.

It was another impressive performance by Coleman, who also clocked 9.85sec in winning at the Bislett Games in Oslo on June 13.

Afterwards Coleman said he was determined to lower his time as he targets a first major outdoor title in Doha this year.

"That's always my mentality," Coleman said. "There's always room for improvement.

"Now we just go back to the lab and keep working and be ready for next time."

Coleman, the world indoor record holder over 60m, finished second behind veteran Justin Gatlin at the 2017 World Championships.

The evergreen Gatlin was close to Coleman's heels on Sunday, finishing second in 9.87, with Britain's Zharnel Hughes third in 9.97.

Coleman meanwhile said he has no specific time in mind, but believes he will need to deliver "something pretty special" if he wants to win in Doha.

"Guys are steadily getting better and better," Coleman said. "It's going to take something pretty special to get a gold medal at the end of the year."

Coleman, a prodigiously talented college athlete who made the Olympic team in 2016, says he is increasingly comfortable with being targeted by the chasing pack.

"More people are talking about me now than they were in 2016," he said. "But my mentality is the same. Keep grinding, keep working hard and keep that chip on my shoulder and keep trying to be the best. At one time I was one of those guys looking at the guys on the top saying 'I want to be like that'.

"Now that I'm one of the guys with a target on my back I have to keep working hard to make sure it doesn't happen."

A naturally fast starter, Coleman has focused on building stamina in order to maintain top speed over the closing stages of a race.

That has involved punishing training drills of multiple sprints at a time.

"Other guys will be tired, but I'll be throwing up," he said.

? 2019 AFP