"New Bolt" announces himself in the Olympics.. Get to know the fastest man in the world

Italy's Lamont Marcel Jacobs won the prestigious 100m race in athletics at the Tokyo Olympics yesterday, succeeding Jamaican legend Usain Bolt, who dominated the race in the last three editions between 2008 and 2016. Jacobs, 26, finished the race with a time of 9.80 seconds, ahead of American Fred Curley (9.84 seconds), who won silver, and Canadian Andre de Grasse (9.89), who won bronze.

He became the first Italian to win gold in this title or even be on the podium. Italian Lamont Marcel Jacobs won the prestigious 100m race in athletics at the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday, succeeding Jamaican legend Usain Bolt, who dominated this race in the last three editions between 2008 and 2016.

"It's a dream, that's great," he said after the win. "Now I don't understand what happened. Maybe tomorrow."

Asked if he expected to win gold before coming to Tokyo, "No, my dream was to reach the final, I arrived and won. I don't know what happened but I'm really happy. It was a great race, I don't have the words!"

The feat comes as a surprise to the El Paso, Texas, runner, to an American father and an Italian mother, as he had not previously achieved remarkable results.

In the absence of the American world champion Christian Coleman for violating the rules of doping, and the failure of the American Trayvon Brommel, the fastest time this year (9.77 seconds), to qualify for the final, the race seemed wide open to determine the identity of the successor to the world record holder Bolt (9.58 seconds), who retired in In 2017.

For the first time since the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Jamaicans were not in the final after Yohan Blake failed to qualify from the semi-finals.

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