BELGRADE, Serbia — There are four big track and field championships this year: world indoors, world outdoors, Commonwealth Games, Europeans. For a sizeable number of top athletes, these world indoors are, for lack of a better description, the baby of the four, the junior rider.
It is perhaps always thus for indoor track and field. In addition, the horror of war roughly 1,000 miles to the northeast assuredly had to make some number question whether a trip to the Balkans in March of 2022 was worth it. And yet. Ukraine’s Yarsolava Mahuchikh won the women’s high jump Saturday, calling her victory a tribute to her homeland, “to show that we are the strongest in the world,” and related how she had escaped via a three-day drive the “too many terrible things [that] have happened there.”
This is the best of us, of humankind, and at its best there is no sport that is better than track and field. It is universal, everywhere, the most accessible sport in our fragile and broken world, and therefore offers the one thing that every single person, no matter where, needs. Hope.
All the same, and no criticism, because this is the indoor season and the circumstances are what they are, some considerable number of track and field’s big names are not here in Belgrade. Jamaica’s best female sprinters? Not even. Any of the three men’s 400-meter medalists at last summer’s Tokyo Games? Not a one. In men’s high jump, Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi is entered — but Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim, with whom Tamberi memorably shared the gold in Tokyo, is not. It’s that kind of meet. Big. But, you know.
In any year, but particularly this one, it would be rare to see the kind of showdown that took place Saturday night in the marquee event of these world indoors, the men’s 60 meters. In Lane 5, the Tokyo Olympic champion in the 100 meters, Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs. Was his run last summer a fluke? In Lane 3, American Christian Coleman, the 2019 100 world champion, the 2018 60-meter winner, the world record-holder at this distance at 6.34 seconds. He could not challenge Jacobs in Tokyo. He was sitting out, grounded by a whereabouts violation.
Rarer still is the race that lives up to the hype.
This one did.
At the finish line // Getty Images
The race was so close that it took a very long time to be sorted out after the two men crossed the finish line, both recorded in 6.41 seconds.
Jacobs got the win. The timing device got him at 6.407 seconds. Coleman: 6.410.
That’s three-thousands of a second.
With that, a rivalry — perhaps a great rivalry for the 2020s — was born.
And it may not be just these two, Jacobs and Coleman. Marvin Bracy, third in 6.44, may have a lot to say. And then there is Fred Kerley, the American who in Tokyo took silver behind Jacobs. On Friday, Kerley ran a world-leading 20.04 in a 200 at a meet in Tempe, Arizona; Kerley also holds the world lead in the 400, a 44.47 in Grenada two weeks ago.
And others still.
The big-picture takeaway from Saturday in Belgrade comes in three pieces:
One, Marcell Jacobs is no fluke. “When you win two gold medals,” he said, “you cannot win by chance.”
Two, Christian Coleman is not all the way back. Not even close.
Jacobs' sneakers at the pre-meet news conference. Zip tie!
Three, both guys said the plan is to get it on in Eugene, at the world outdoors in July.
Jacobs can be exceptionally likeable. He dresses in the manner of a heavyweight boxing champ. Even on the track — diamond bling on his right wrist, a diamond necklace around his neck, diamond earrings. At a pre-meet news conference, he made some sort of fashion statement with a zip tie still attached to his right sneaker.
The son of an American father — who was not much in the picture when Marcell was growing up — and an Italian mother, Jacobs was a long jumper who turned to the sprints. He has been clear that his work this indoor season was essentially focused on one thing: his start.
Most important, and this is a facet that often goes overlooked in the breakdown of what’s what in track and field, Jacobs does not typically make mistakes.
He did at a meet about two weeks ago here in Belgrade. He false-started. The rule in track and field is easy: one false start and you’re out. This sort of thing can weigh on the mind. Not Jacobs. He said at that news conference before things got underway here: better to have done it then than at this meet.
This is a champion’s mindset, something you either have or you don’t, the kind of thing you cannot teach. When you make a mistake, you don’t dwell. You learn, you put it behind you, you move on. This is Jacobs.
His run in Tokyo — he won in 9.8 — was viewed by some, especially the British press and some quarters of the U.S. media as well, with grave suspicion.
The Italian press, of course, viewed it — then and now — with great delight.
“Jacobs, who has doubts now?” Gianni Merlo, the president of the International Sportswriters Association, who for some 40 years has been an expert in track and field from his base near Milan, said in a Facebook post immediately after the race.
“Many guys have sent out doubts on the Olympic victory of Marcel Jacobs, now I think that he has confirmed that he is a great sprinter.”
In the heats, Jacobs went 6.53. Then, in the semis, 6.45.
Coleman, meanwhile, is still — clearly — coming back from his enforced 18-month whereabouts time off. This meet marked only his third of 2022; the first in January at the Millrose Games, after which he had some nagging injuries; then the U.S. nationals in Spokane; now, here.
In both the heats and semis he cruised through in 6.51.
Coleman is a known fast starter, and that’s how the final played out. He broke out early. Through the middle of the race, he said, “I feel like I could have been running a little smoother,” the rust still to be worked out from the months away. “I definitely saw him,” Jacobs, “at the line. We both dipped. Honestly, I had no idea [who won] … we were both waiting.”
Jacobs started ever-so-slightly slower and then came roaring on through the middle and end of the race like a freight train.
“It was a great race. I really enjoyed it,” Jacobs said, adding a moment later, “The final meters I was on the finish line but I could not realize who was the winner.”
Bracy, in Lane 4, said of the last few meters, “Just towards the end, i could feel Marcel have a nice surge.
It was a hell of a race.”
Coleman congratulating Jacobs after the race // Getty Images
An Italian, Jacobs is not eligible for the Commonwealth Games. His season now turns to Eugene in July and, in August, the Europeans in Munich. At a post-race news conference, he said he had allowed himself this thought: he is Olympic and world indoor champion and, now, “This year, I have the chance to win all that is possible in athletics.”
For the moment, though, “I came here just to be as close as poss to Christian” — that is, in the race. “Being the winner of such a great race gives me a lot of happiness.”
For his part, Coleman, who made a point immediately after the race of congratulating Jacobs, said at that same post-race news conference, “I look forward to outdoors, competing with these guys.” Referring to Jacobs, he added, “It was a fun race. And i look forward to the rivalry.”
Let’s get it on. It’s good, so good, for track and field.