The match report is, as always, coldly bureaucratic: yesterday afternoon at 3.54 pm in Jacksonville, Florida, in his seasonal debut Marcell Jacobs ran the 100 meters in 10″11 favored by 0.9 meters of windfinishing the first heat of the East Coast Relays in second place with the same time as Canadian champion Andre De Grasse.
The reaction time (the race is a regional category) was not recorded. Without TV coverage, the test was videotaped from an unfortunate angle with a cell phone from a spectator in the stands, presumably Jacobs’ wife, Nicole Daza. However, the video provides us with a lot of information: Marcell comes out of the blocks really badly when shooting, he proceeds hunched over in the first 10 meters, is only fourth halfway through the race but then relaxes with a nice progression, without stiffening his shoulders, overtaking first the American Trayvon Brommel (3rd) and then the Chinese Zenye and in the end he dives toDe Grasse’s flank without overtaking him by just three thousandths. Service note, to avoid the headwind the athletes competed on the track in the opposite direction to normal, running from right to left on the main straight.
The analysis of the race contains some negative elements and many other positive ones. On the negative side, iMarcell’s 10″11 is only his 27th time in his career and 25th on the season world list. In Paris you qualify by running in a clear 10″ or less or by entering the top 56 in the world ranking. The Brescia native can therefore say he has already qualified for the Games also because it has never happened in the history of athletics that 56 athletes went below 10”11. Furthermore, it is quite probable that Jacobs will run faster in the next races.
There is no shortage of positive elements. Jacobs fought back on par with highly rated training partners Brommel (9″76 personal best), 2022 world bronze medalist, and De Grasse, six Olympic medals in his career. Marcell’s 10″11 is the best time on his career seasonal debut after Savona’s 9″95 in the magical 2021 Tokyo, an excellent sign for an athlete loaded with work and who always struggles to find good sensations in the first races and who yesterday he also had to shake off all the doubts of a very difficult 2023 and the change of coach.
Coach Rana Reider’s “cure”, which revolutionized the training program, seems to be working. «I am very happy to be back competing — explains Jacobs after the finish line — and above all without problems. I needed to find these sensations again. We were all a bit surprised because the straight was reversed and some time was lost: the warm-up took longer than usual. The start was a bit so-so but in the second part of the race I felt really comfortable and it’s a starting point we can work on. I’m not entirely satisfied with the time, I thought I would run a little faster. But now I will go with my mind to the national team meeting in Miami and to the race in the Bahamas to qualify the relay for the Olympics. Let’s continue like this.”
