Marcell Jacobs won Italian champs in 10.12 on Friday. Can he be a player at Worlds?

Roid up enough and the world is his oyster.

Yes, he can be a player at worlds if he stays healthy these last few weeks. But the competition is going to be tough (Jamaica, USA, guy from Kenya)

Jacob's technique is close to perfect. In the 100 technique is critical. Guy's muddle through years of training not reaching their potential because their technique isn't ideal. When someone has great technique they can come back from all kinds of problems if they are healthy and are "built for it".

He's up against Reece Prescod (9.93 SB) and Akani Simbine (10.06 SB) in Stockholm on Thursday. A little test for Jacobs before facing the heavy hitters in Eugene

Never count this guy out. He’s compete level is like Kerley’s and his technique is the best is the best in the world. He will be firmly in the mix and is the sort of finisher that could cause Bromell/Coleman to panic while in the lead.

It's hard to tell because he is so smooth, but it looked like he shut it down the last 20 meters and did just enough to take the win.

Not even close, therefore injury. Overexaggerated front action and almost no back action, running on pure muscle strength, which eventually will lead to injuries. Compare his technique to Usain Bolt, who truly had an impeccable form. There is some sort of push off the hind leg, while Jacons is just powerfully wheeling in front of him.

Yes to the above, his form can be great, he is strong, he improves meteorically, etc.

Fine, that gets him to 9.8, like we saw last year.

That says nothing about his competition, though.

Some of the guys are on fire this year. Fred Sanford Kerley is leading the way, he looks unbeatable, the way he just decided to win the final at nats. That was boss, that was supreme control over himself, and showed that he has yet another level that we haven’t seen fully exploited.

Bromell and Bracy are in proximity, and are seriously in the game. Jacobs will be like a sub coming off the bench, by the time he figures out what’s going on, it will be too late—unless he is an historic great like Dolt, the chance of which is exceedingly slim.

Like with the JAM women, right now the men’s 100m is an American club, and Jacobs ain’t in it.

He showed up virtually unknown at the Olympics and ran a string of consecutive PBs. Beautiful mechanics. Never count him out.

Yes that is true, although he WAS on the radar of those in the know.

It is also true that he didn’t have the same times to contend with, as he has this year.

He is fundamentally very sound, though👍

I actualy don't see this as being close at all. here is Kerley obviously in 9.7 shape and there is our Italian out of Texas running 10.1's, how will he become a 9.7 in three weeks, ain't going to happen. I can't see Tex medaling to be honest.

Im surprised no one has picked up on how Jacobs operates yet. He is a copy cat of Usain Bolt lays low with minimal races running sub par then comes and hammers it at big competitions. He will most likely win the 100m he has the best technique and is a high responder to whatever his team is giving him that allows him to drop massive tenths in a short span of time just as the thread maker said he was a nobody and in 23 days was olympic champion. His team knows what they are doing. Usain Bolt did the same thing and why he was able to win so many olympic games because he didnt run all year and only peaked and went and saw dr. hands over in germany at championship time lmaoo. I have Jacobs winning in 9.70. Im just curious to what this guy takes to make him so powerful so fast someone with some knowledge on this needs to chime in.

This, at least, doesn't appear to be Jacobs' intended style at all. First of all, he runs indoors. Second of all, he signs up for a lot of races. He had some freak incidents this year (food poisoning in Kenya) and an injury that knocked him out of 2 DLs so we'll see if that becomes a trend, but it looks like he'd organize his season to run 3-4 big races then champs indoors, and 4-5 continental tour gold/DLs then championships outdoors. Pretty healthy amount of racing that I'd find more comparable to how Kerley is operating than how Bolt used to structure it.

Kerly might be the belle of the ball now, but who’s to say he didnt just reached his high point here and will be unable to duplicate or improve in a few weeks?

With sprinting, you just never know.

We'll talk after the race, ok?

So here is a question. We all know about Marcel Jacobs stunning transformation from middling long jumper to Olympic 100m champion and how after making this transformation he plateaued (3 years) at this 10.0-10.1 second level before his breakout 2021 where he ran 9.80.

If he shows up to Eugene and runs 10.0X, dips out in the semis and then goes to Euros and does the same are we just hanging on to this "must be just an injury" narrative?

Open and honest question.

You seem to have selective amnesia of his indoor season where he ran awesome and won World Indoor Gold at 60. He's not a one-season wonder, at the very least he's put two monster seasons together.

Jacobs is American…

Sprinters are like finely tuned race cars. Many factors contribute to top performance - diet, sleep, lifestyle, psychology, quality of training, consistency of training, metabolic health, injury, recovery from injury (which can take years), proper technique (which can take years to perfect). Trying to figure out why a sprinter performs well or poorly takes a lot of detective work, only the people close to the athlete have a good idea of what is going on and even they may not understand everything going on inside the athlete's head.

Using the race car analogy - if the engine, transmission, suspension and chassis are of championship caliber (mostly genetically determined) then even if the car crashes and suffers damage it may only take a few adjustments and fixes to get the car back in racing condition. Fast sprinting is mostly natural talent. Sprinting is entirely different from distance running. Sprinters are not lazy, today's elite sprinters spend hours each day doing all kinds of supporting work (weights, prehab, complex stretching, mental work, reviewing video and discussing technique). If sprinters approached training the same way distance runners do, they would get slower not faster.

Because fast sprinting is mostly determined naturally, you often see someone "come out of nowhere". They were always "there", they just weren't uncovered. Conversely, lots of sprinters grind away in mediocrity and never break through, either because they don't have the talent or they are incompetently trained (usually the case regardless of their talent). As in distance running, most succeed in spite of whatever coaching they receive and most don't succeed because of mediocre coaching.

In Jacob's case, it is anyone's guess what is going on and how his story will unfold. In two weeks we will witness another chapter. So far I've taken his story at face value but also know that anything is possible.