Marcell Jacobs, the Olympic 100m champion from Italy, has been pressured to withdraw from Saturday’s Diamond League meet in Rabat, Morocco, the place he was set to face off towards world 100m champion Fred Kerley. Jacobs cited delicate sciatica as the rationale for his withdrawal.
“I’m pressured to skip the 100m and the primary face-off with Kerley in Rabat, which I used to be actually wanting ahead to, resulting from a sacral nerve block that I’m engaged on resolving within the brief time period,” Jacobs mentioned in a tweet. “It’s the results of a misstep and never an harm, which does nonetheless preserve me from competing in Morocco. I’m in robust bodily form technically and prepared for an ideal outside season. The problem is just postponed.”
Though Jacobs will miss the Rabat meet on Could 27, he and Kerley are nonetheless scheduled to compete towards one another at a Diamond League meet in Florence, Italy, on June 2, supplied that Jacobs’ sciatica remedy resolves within the subsequent week or so.
😂😂😂
— Fred Kerley (@fkerley99) Could 25, 2023
Jacobs skilled a number of setbacks final season, lacking most of it together with the world championships, resulting from well being points. In the meantime, Kerley’s principal opponents within the upcoming race will likely be fellow American Trayvon Bromell, the world bronze medallist, and Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya, the quickest man on the earth this yr with a time of 9.84 seconds.
The final time the reigning Olympic and world males’s 100m champions confronted one another in a race was within the 2012 London Olympic remaining, that includes Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake. Following Bolt’s reign from 2013 to 2017, he retired as Olympic champion till Jacobs stunned the world along with his victory in Tokyo, the place Kerley claimed silver and Canada’s Andre De Grasse gained bronze.
