US sprint star Jordan Anthony won 60m indoor gold with a blood clot “the size of a soccer ball” after a drug test gone wrong less than two days before the race.
Anthony, 21, landed a first global win at the World Championships in Poland on Friday but had to overcome a bizarre build up to even compete.
He clocked the fastest time of the season at 6.41 seconds, beating the previous best, also set by him, by a sliver.
American rising talent Anthony admitted afterwards that preparations had been a disaster.
Doping control botched a drug test just 36 hours before the race, injecting the needle into the wrong part of his arm.
Anthony explained: “When they took blood, he didn’t stick it in my vein but outside, so I got a clot the size of a soccer ball.
“That is why my arm is taped up. But it is what it is. Nothing can stop me.”
Anthony, who recorded the fourth-fastest 60m run in history to claim gold, was helped by doctors.
He could not sleep on his left arm, though, and struggled to move it properly.
Nothing was going to get him off the start line.
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He added: “The devil is always going to try, but I will never let him stop me from getting a gold medal.”
Revealing his motivation, and pointing to tattoos on his back, Anthony continued: “My aunt passed a year ago, my cousin passed four years ago before I got to college, so I put them in my back.
“So as I’m winning physically, they’re winning spiritually.”
He had admitted to targeting Christian Coleman’s 6.34 second world record after beating training partner Noah Lyles – the 100m Olympic champ – earlier in the year.
Anthony said before the race: “I am not going to sugarcoat it.
“Why not break it at the world stage where I am basically racing the world?”
Jamaican Kishane Thompson finished joint-second on 6.45 with US athlete Trayvon Bromell.
Brit Jeremiah Azu was narrowly outside the medal positions at 6.46.
