BOLT FROM THE BLUE
Unknown to even the runner next to him, Italian Jacobs is the first 100m Olympic champion in the post-Usain Bolt era
The 100 meters at the Olympics is the event that turns sprinters into kings: Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis, Usain Bolt.
On one of the most unusual nights the sport has ever seen, fans, experts, and even the competitors themselves needed a lineup card.
The race that has long defined Olympic royalty went to a Texas-born Italian who hadn’t cracked 10 seconds until this year. He’s a 26-year-old whose best days before this came in the long jump. He’s a man even the runner in the next lane didn’t really know.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Lamont Marcell Jacobs is The World’s Fastest Man.
“I think I need four or five years to realize and understand what’s happening,” Jacobs said.
The Italian crossed the line in 9.8s on Sunday night to capture the first 100m medal ever for the country better known for its football prowess. Pietro Mennea won the 200m at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and Livio Berruti won that race at the 1960 Games in Rome.
Even in a contest with no clear favourites — American Ronnie Baker was a candidate and China’s Su Bingtian ran a shocking 9.83s in the semis — Jacobs came from nowhere.
He topped America’s Fred Kerley, a 400m runner who moved down in distance because he saw a medal chance, and Canada’s Andre De Grasse, who adds another 100m bronze to the one he won Rio. Kerley finished second in 9.84s and DeGrasse was next at 9.89s.
“I really don’t know anything about him,” Kerley said of the new gold medallist. “He did a fantastic job.”
Jacobs’s path was made that much clearer because of who wasn’t in the race.
The reigning world champion, Christian Coleman, is serving a ban for missed doping tests.
The world leader in
2021 and the favourite to win the gold, Trayvon Bromell, didn’t make it out of the semifinals. And for the first time since the 2000 Sydney Games, there was no Jamaican in the final, Bolt’s long-time former teammate Yohan Blake failing to qualify from his semifinals.
Bolt, who has commandeered the Olympic and every other sprint stage since 2008, is retired. He was a sure thing in all nine Olympic sprints he ran from the Beijing Games — a stretch of dominance that redefined track and field, but also left a gaping hole in the sport when he called it a career.
“He changed athletics forever,” Jacobs said. “I’m the one who won the Olympics after him. That’s unbelievable. But drawing comparisons, I don’t think it’s the time now.”
Bolt’s world record is 9.58s. Before Sunday, Jacobs’ personal best was 9.95s.
“I mean, 9.8 from the Italian guy?” De Grasse said. “I didn’t expect that. I thought my main competition would be the Americans.”
Nope. The Italians.
“I crafted a really good team to support me,” Jacobs said of his improvement.
“We changed the starts. And we work mentality. Mentality, good food, good physiotherapy.
“I really work hard with my mind. Because when I was arriving at the big moment my legs don’t work too good. Now my legs go really good when it’s a big moment,” he added.
Perhaps the only person at the track who really knew the new champion was the man who hugged him after he crossed the finish line.
That was Gianmarco Tamberi, the Italian high jumper who tied Qatari’s Mutaz Essa Barshim for gold.
After an overflow of emotions after his win, he found just the person a few minutes later when Jacobs crossed the line first. Tamberi leaped into the broad-chested sprinter’s arms and curled his own arm around Jacobs’ bald head.
Only a night before, they’d been sitting in Jacobs’s tiny room in the Olympic village playing video games.
“And we said, ‘Can you imagine if we win?”” Jacobs said. “(We said) ’No, no, no. It’s impossible. Don’t think this.’”