Jacobs has withdrawn from up to seven races in the past 12 months.The Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs will miss Friday’s 100m at the Diamond League meeting in Florence as he continues to recover from a back injury, the Italian athletics federation announced on Tuesday evening.
Jacobs pulled out of last week’s event in Rabat where he was set to come up against Commonwealth champion Ferdinand Omanyala, and World champion Fred Kerley, among other elite sprinters in the event that was eventually won by Kerley, with Omanyala finishing third despite a strong start.
For the Rabat event, Jacobs cited the same back problem.”The recovery process for Jacobs, after the problem that emerged in recent days, does not appear to be fully completed yet,” the federation said in a statement.
Jacob’s withdrawals started with last year’s edition of the Kip Keino Classic, then the Diamond League meetings in Eugene, Rome, Oslo, and Stockholm as a precaution for the World Athletics Championships in Oregon where his quest was cut short in the semis as he withdrew citing the recurring thigh injury.
The Italian beat Kerley to gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but the pair have not faced off since.Apart from Omanyala and Kerley, Florence boasts a star-studded lineup that will also feature reigning Diamond League champion Trayvon Bromell and fellow American Erriyon Knighton as well as South Africa’s Akani Simbine.
