The organisers of the Beijing World Challenge have denied claims made by Justin Gatlin that he was kicked out of this week's event.
The 33-year-old was due to take part at the meeting in China on Wednesday, but did not compete after revealing the he was told to leave.
Gatlin's manager Renaldo Nehemiah backed up his claims and said that organisers were worried that he would be a late withdrawal with a hamstring injury.
"We had been preparing the event assuming Gatlin would run the race. There was no way we 'kicked out' the athlete. So we have been perplexed by what they said," deputy director of the organising committee Liu Jie told Xinhua.
"Nehemiah did not communicate with us before he announced Gatlin's withdrawal at yesterday's news conference. And we never got to speak with Gatlin in person."
Gatlin ran a new personal best of 9.74 seconds in the 100m at last Friday's Diamond League meeting in Doha.
