Christian Coleman’s 60m world title offers the latest flash of prodigious talent from the next sprint king

Christian Coleman’s silver medal at last summer’s World Athletics Championships in London didn’t receive much attention, sandwiched as it was between Usain Bolt’s bronze in his final individual race and the disheartening sight of Justin Gatlin winning gold. But it was a significant moment, proving that the 21-year-old could deliver his prodigious talent on the global stage, under pressure, against the greatest of all time.

Now Bolt has retired, Gatlin is 36, and there is a void to be filled in the sport’s king event. At the Birmingham Arena on Saturday night Coleman gave the latest signal that he is the man to fill it, winning the world indoor 60m title in a blistering 6.37 sec – three tenths shy of the world record he set two weeks ago, when he broke Maurice Greene’s mark which had stood untouched for 20 years.

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Shy is an appropriate word where Coleman is concerned. The American’s personality could not be much further removed from Bolt’s irresistible charisma, Gatlin’s brooding intensity or Greene’s arrogant swagger. The softly spoken Tennessean offers no trash talk, no proclamations of greatness, no predictions of astonishing new numbers; instead he speaks with a level-headed clarity about achieving technical precision and mastering his trade.

That sort of talk might not encourage the crowds after Bolt’s exit, but perhaps a supreme athlete who goes about their business with a quiet focus is someone worth cherishing in a sport wrestling with controversies and fighting for credibility.

Greene has recently become something of a mentor. Coleman received a call from the 2000 Olympic 100m champion in the middle of an interview following the 60m world record last month, congratulating him on the achievement. Coleman talks of Greene as a “friend” and for all the former champion’s showtime bluster at his peak, he is not a bad mentor to have, someone who has been there and done it, and come out the other side with a reputation relatively unscathed.

Greene, though, is not the man Coleman is constantly compared to. Can he become the next Usain Bolt, they ask. “I think there will always be those kinds of talks just because, man, he’s an icon,” Coleman said on Saturday. “He’s done so many things for the sport and really pushed the sport forward and, of course, he has world records. There will always be those comparisons but I want to step out.

“I don’t want to be the next Usain Bolt; I want to be Christian Coleman, in a few years from now to maybe have people say, ‘Who’s going to be the next Christian Coleman?’”

Coleman is focused only on his next race, he insists, but it is also true that he and his coach Tim Hall have already set out a training cycle which builds towards the next World Athletics Championships, in Doha next year, and ultimately the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

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Last year’s focus was on the rivalry between Bolt and Gatlin, but it was Coleman who posted the fastest time of 2017 (9.82 sec). He is by that measure already the world’s fastest man, even if it will take a global 100m title to cement it.

So what about Bolt’s world record? That time of 9.58 sec could realistically last even longer than Greene’s 60m mark, and while it is something Coleman insists he is not obsessed by, if someone is to beat it in the coming years it will surely be the quiet man heading inescapably towards the throne at the top of the sport.

“I think the 100m world record is something that’s a huge reach, so I don’t really focus on it,” he said, before adding one more line that suggests it has at least crossed his mind. “If it happens, it happens and I’ll be prepared for the moment, if the conditions are perfect and that opportunity presents itself.”