The fastest human being in the world — there is a magical ring to the words often used to anoint the men’s 100m champion at the Olympics. It’s a heavy honour to bear. Nobody has worn it as lightly as the great Usain Bolt did during his glittering career. With an unprecedented hat-trick of 100m-200m doubles at the Games, from 2008 to 2016, Bolt did things that had until then existed only in fantasy. A legend in his lifetime, it seemed his era would never end. But nobody, not even Bolt, can outrun Father Time, and so, in Tokyo last year, the world awaited a new king.
Lamont Marcell Jacobs was not the first name that came up in discussions among athletics fans who attempted to predict the identity of Bolt’s successor as the 100m champion. After all, the Texas-born Italian sprinter had never gone under 10 seconds until 2021. But after USA’s Trayvon Bromell, the favourite, exited in the semifinals, Jacobs surged to victory in a European record time of 9.80 seconds, announcing himself on the world’s biggest stage in some style. For good measure, the then 26-year-old added the 4x100m relay gold to his collection, silencing, at least temporarily, the critics who claimed that Jacobs was no more than a flash in the pan.
