BELGRADE – Italy’s double Olympic champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs overtook Christian Coleman to win gold by three thousandths of a second in the 60 metres at the 2022 World Indoor Championships.
Jacobs improved on his previous best in the 60 metres discipline by six hundredths of a second to claim a European record time of 6.41 seconds, but came up short of the world record of 6.34 set by American Coleman in 2018.
Coleman, who returned to action in January after serving an 18-month suspension for breaching anti-doping whereabouts rules, led for most of the race but his effort was undone by Jacob’s late surge and perfectly executed dip at the finish line.
Marvin Bracy took bronze with a time of 6.44 seconds.
Jacobs became the first Italian to win Olympic 100 metres gold in Tokyo last August, setting a European record time of 9.80 seconds in the final, before adding a second gold to his collection in the 4×100 metres relay.
He ended his 2021 season early citing exhaustion, and returned to the track in February.
Coleman will get another chance to defend another world title against Jacobs at World Championships in Eugene this July, where we will get to see Coleman vs. Jacobs vs. Canada’s Andre De Grasse over 100m.
Despite an awkward start out of the blocks, Canada’s Bolade Ajomale finished seventh in 6.63 seconds.
Damian Warner has upgraded his 2018 indoor silver to gold at the 2022 World Indoor Championships to win Canada’s first medal in Belgrade. Warner trailed Simon Ehammer of Switzerland going into the final event, the 1,000m.
Warner has got his redemption, missing out on the gold by five points four years ago in Birmingham, UK.
He led the heptathlon on day one and then carried his lead into the sixth event, the pole vault.
His vault tied his indoor personal best but it was Ehammer, who had a personal best performance, gaining ground on Warner.
Heading into the last event, Ehammer led Warner by 31 points. Warner needed to beat him by four seconds to close the gap and win gold.
He ended up running within two seconds of his 1,000m personal best (2:39.56) to win his first-world indoor title.
