Marcell Jacobs, winning Olympic test in Rieti.
The words of Marcell Jacobs
With three weeks to go until the Olympic final in Paris (Sunday, August 4), Marcell Jacobs wins in the final act of the Rieti test in the 100 meters. In’the last of three rounds, run in just over twenty-four hours to simulate the two days ahead of him at the Games, the Tokyo champion’was the fastest at Guidobaldi Stadium, with a time of 10.08 (+0.9), catching up on China’s Xie Zhenye (10.09) and ahead of Canada’s Andre De Grasse (10.11), on a decidedly hot afternoon, with temperatures touching as high as 34 degrees.
Fourth was Japan’s Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (10.20) and fifth was China’s Chen Jiapeng (10.27). An hour and a half earlier, the Gold Flames’ Italian had been third in the semifinals with 10.16 (+1.1) behind Olympic relay bronze medalist Xie (10.08) and paired with 200 Olympic champion De Grasse (10.16), ahead by thousandths.
“Winning is always good and I’m glad I did it,” Jacobs said after the race, applauded by the large crowd in Rieti, the city he chose for his summer training with coach Rana Reider’s group. “This test was part of a long week of training and was to see how the body would react.I can say that the muscles held up well and now I’m ready to work another two weeks. Good that I improved the chrono one round after the other (yesterday 10.17 in the battery, ed.), I was hoping to run a little faster in the semifinals, but the heat and humidity affected it. Obviously these are not times that apply to Paris: with these times you do very little at the Olympics, you don’t get into the finals. The peak was not supposed to be here, but it will have to be at the Games. Now we will go back to fix some technical aspects: there’è stall from 15 to 30 meters, in the transition, and è thatè that I want to work on, with a lot of dedication and also to regain the form and qualityà that we need for Paris. I am not going there to participate but to try to bring home a medal again and have fun. The Trials? The Americans have to find the condition before us. Forò who impressed me è the Jamaican Kishane Thompson: I knew he could run strong, but what counts è the Olympics final. Rieti? È a track I have been running since 2013, I did the first European junior championship here. Since I arrived in town; I feel comfortable, è a perfect place to train, focus, stay at home, rest”.
