Marcell Jacobs made his highly anticipated season debut, 230 days after the last competitive outing (10.08 on 10 September 2023 in Zagreb). The Olympic 100 meter champion he was the big star of the East Cost Relays, a staged meeting in Jacksonville (Florida, USA), where the Lombard sprinter moved a few months ago to train at Rana Reider’s court.
The Messiah of Italian athletics, capable of providing the most anthological page of Italian sport with the apotheosis at the Tokyo 2020 Games, presented himself boldly at the starting blocks, eager to test himself after a long absence from competitive activity and to understand the progress of the preparatory work for the major seasonal events.
MARCELL JACOBS’ RETURN TO THE COMPETITION
Marcell Jacobs ran 10.11 with a 0.9 m/s tailwind. The 29-year-old didn’t get out of the starting blocks very well (among other things, the race was on a different straight than usual, which is a viable option in many American facilities), but then he lit up around two-thirds of the race and was ascended with relative conviction, showing a good launch which bodes well for the near future.
The progression has been admirable and there is clear room for improvement: we are only on April 27th, a month and a half until the European Championships and more than three months until the Olympics. Marcell Jacobs forcefully recovered the American Travyon Bromell (twice world champion bronze) and the Canadian Andrè De Grasse, his training partners, joined them and also stood out with a good lunge on the finish line. Our standard bearer has finished in second place, only beaten at the photo-finish by three thousandths by De Grasse (200m Olympic Champion).
VIDEO Marcell Jacobs, 10″11 on debut: let’s relive the match and a throw from “good times”
See more
Overall the performance was comforting, what was needed after the many physical problems of recent years (during which he still won gold in the 60 meters at the Indoor World Championships and the 100 meters title at the European Championships, as well as making a contribution fundamental to 4×100). Behind him the aforementioned Bromell (10.14), the highly rated Chinese Xie Zhenye (10.14) and the Japanese Hakim Sani Brown (10.15 for his training partner, who had recently run in 10.02).
MARCELL JACOBS’ NEXT RACES
Marcell Jacobs will return to competition next weekend (May 4-5) at the World Relays, the World Relay Championships scheduled in Nassau (Bahamas): the Brescia native will be a pillar of the 4x100m team that will pursue the pass to the 2024 Paris Olympics, after having won gold in five hoops three years ago and silver at the World Championships last summer. Subsequent individual commitments are scheduled in Rome on May 18th and in Ostrava (Czech Republic) on May 28thand then head towards the European Championships in Rome (7-12 June), a transition event towards the Games.
