Photo

Usain Bolt of Jamaica won the men’s 100 meters at the world championships in Beijing on Sunday, edging out the American Justin Gatlin, left.Credit Srdjan Suki/European Pressphoto Agency

A night at the world championships that many feared would become a cautionary tale for track and field turned into a tale of two stumbles instead..

Usain Bolt stumbled when he still had room to recover. Justin Gatlin stumbled when he had no more margin of error.

As a result, Bolt remains Bolt: a superstar sprinter capable of seizing the big race and occasion even with logic and better-prepared opposition against him.

He arrived in Beijing with a little less swagger, having raced very little in the last two seasons. He then went out on Sunday night and still found a way to triumph again in the Bird’s Nest Stadium, seven years after he won three gold medals here in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

In a world championship 100-meter final billed as a morality play, Bolt, 29, finished one-hundredth of a second ahead of Gatlin, the 33-year-old American who has twice served doping suspensions.

Bolt, the fastest man in history, did not come close to his world record of 9.58 seconds, but his time of 9.79 gave him his third 100-meter world title after his victories in 2009 and 2013.

“I came out here relaxed, no stress and brought it home,” Bolt said. “My aim is to be the No. 1 until I retire, and therefore I am pushing myself and pushing myself. It is all about running the race and getting it done. You can call that race rusty. I could have run faster.”

Gatlin, the 2005 world 100 champion, finished in 9.80: well off his season best of 9.74 recorded in May. With 20 meters to go, it appeared he might be able to outsprint Bolt, but Gatlin lost his rhythm with about five strides remaining and was off balance as he headed for the finish.

Trayvon Bromell, a 20-year-old American, and Andre De Grasse, a 20-year-old Canadian, both finished in 9.92 and won bronze medals in their first world championships.

“The last five meters was a little crucial,” Gatlin said. “I leaned forward a little too much, and I was off balance.”

But Gatlin remained upbeat despite losing a race that many expert analysts believed he was ready to win. Even after he and Bolt crossed the finish line, Gatlin was smiling, but his mood in private was not so sunny. Renaldo Nehemiah, Gatlin’s longtime agent, said Gatlin broke down in tears when they saw each other after the race. “He felt so beat up, you know?” Nehemiah said. “Because this was the only way for him to kind of feel vindicated by just winning. Because no one else was in his corner media-wise.”

Bolt’s stumble could have kept him out of the final altogether. It came in the first of the three semifinals earlier in the evening. He got off to a quick start by his standards and then scuffed his toe on the track and lost momentum. At 50 meters, he was well behind of the leaders, but he fought his way back, grimacing and casting his gaze left with about 10 strides left and keeping it there on De Grasse, Bromell and Su Bingtian of China, who were all still ahead of him.

Bolt managed to cross just ahead of De Grasse, with both finishing in 9.96. But while De Grasse looked delighted, Bolt was shaking his head and pursing his lips as he slowed.

“I’m not worried,” Bolt told Jamaican reporters afterward. “I felt good at the start, but I don’t know what happened with that stumble.”

There would be no such misadventures for Gatlin in the next semifinal, which he won in 9.77 . Tyson Gay won the last semifinal in 9.96, just ahead of Asafa Powell in 9.97.

In all, nine men qualified for the final, and for the first time in world championships history, all of them had had to run under 10 seconds to advance.

But that was not the statistic that generated the most discussion before the final.

“Impossible to be excited for the men’s 100m,” Alyssia Montano, an American 800-meter runner, said on Twitter. “Three convicted drug cheats ... Three ... Give me a break.”

Actually, it was four: Gatlin, Gay, Powell and Mike Rodgers. And other veteran observers were not prepared to believe there might not be more.

“Too frequently these world champ events have subsequently been shown to involve PED-enhanced competitors,” Richard Ings, former head of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, said on Twitter. “I will wait for 2025 retests.”

Bolt and Gatlin had not raced each other since the 2013 world championships, in which Gatlin had to settle for silver against Bolt in the 100 and in the 4-by-100 relay, where both men ran the anchor legs.

They first raced in a major championship 10 years ago, in 2005 in Helsinki, where an injured Bolt finished last in the world championships 200 final and Gatlin completed his sweep of the 100 and 200 and looked set to settle in for an extended reign as the world’s leading sprinter.

A year later, he was out of the sport and serving his second doping suspension, which was eventually reduced to four years.