Marcell Jacobs backstory: the champion tried until the very end

The Federation thanked the European champion and his staff.

Just when the many Italian fans were getting the hang of it, Marcell Jacobs stopped again. The halt to participation in the 4×100 relay (later mocked by Turkey’s controversial qualification for the final) came just when the Olympic champion seemed to be back to levels of excellence. The explanation of what happened, complete with background on the great willingness shown by the athlete, came from an official Fidal note.

“Following a discussion that took place in the afternoon with the technical direction, at the request of President Stefano Mei, Fidal expresses its appreciation to Marcell Jacobs and his staff, in particular to coach Paolo Camossi, for once again demonstrating availability, self-sacrifice, generosity and team spirit for the blue jersey,” the note reads.

“As is well known, Marcell Jacobs, in the final that gave us gold in the 100 meters,” the statement continues, “experienced a functional overload in his left calf. Considering his participation in the batteries of the 4×100 relay crucial to qualifying for the final, Marcell and his staff were asked to make themselves available anyway, despite their perplexity because of the risk the athlete would have incurred, and despite the fact that they had therefore planned his use only in the final. The progress of the preliminary stages of the warm-up showed the exacerbation of the discomfort felt in the previous days, and imposed the definitive exclusion of the athlete’s use in the first round of the relay,” the federation statement concluded.