Olympic 100 metres champion Justin Gatlin returned to his winning ways with victory in 9.96 seconds at the Rome Golden Gala on Friday.

In the absence of Jamaica's world record holder Asafa Powell [Images], who pulled out of the event on Friday, Gatlin won by a tenth of a second ahead of Ghana's Aziz Zakari. Zakari beat Gatlin to the line in last Friday's Paris Golden League meeting.

After only two of the six Golden League meetings, just three people remain in contention for the million dollar jackpot shared between athletes who win each of their events in the elite series.

They are Russia's [Images] Olympic long jump champion Tatyana Lebedeva, who won the triple jump on Friday, French 100 metres runner Christine Arron and American 400 metres hurdler Lashinda Demus.

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Two more Paris winners, Kenyan 1,500 metres runner Daniel Komen and Russia's Svetlana Cherkasova in the 800 also saw their hopes of cashing in on the jackpot slip away.

Komen was overhauled in the last 50 metres by Rashid Ramzi, who crossed the line in three minutes 30.01 seconds to equal the best performance this year.

Cherkasova also had to settle for second place, six hundredths of a second behind Marocco's Hasna Benhassi, the winner in one minute 58.41 seconds.

Earlier, one of the longest unbeaten streaks almost ended when world steeplechase record holder Saif Saaeed Shaheen was pushed all the way to the line by Paul Koech.

Shaheen, who has dominated the event in recent seasons racking up 19 successive wins dating back to 2002, trailed for most of the final lap, but seized the lead in the final few strides to win in seven minutes 56.34 seconds, three hundredths ahead of the Olympic bronze medallist.