Jacobs against Kerley, challenge with provocation: “You always dodge”

At this point it is difficult to say if Marcell Jacobs and Fred Kerley are provoking each other relentlessly (and insulting even a little) or trying to blame Bolt, to create a challenge that is at least as expected as the fastest man alive was.

Olympic champion against world champion, only that there isn’t a scheduled date on the calendar to see them against each other: in theory we have to wait until August when, at the next World Cup in Budapest, one will try to take the only title that he misses and the other will race to defend the title. In between a long season waiting for a stage of the Diamond league, a meeting, a city with the right resources to invest in both. They first poked each other, then bit them and now they make fun of each other, all via social media and all very true.

Kerley started, from the microphones of the talk blog hosted by Anson Henry, a former Canadian printer, who is now an athletics handler broadcasting from a basement with a long beard, a hooded sweatshirt on his head, a carefree air and the promise of be politically incorrect. Regular guest Justin Gatlin with the inevitable cup of American coffee from the US evening show. In the episode in which Kerley was the protagonist, he was asked for an opinion on Jacobs’ indoor season and he went down hard. First he replied that “the real dog” (the real dog, in the original language) can be seen outdoors and then he sank the jab and removed Jacobs from the category: “No, he’s not”.

Not quite the definition of “friend” we were left with last year before the Golden Gala missed by Jacobs due to injury and won by Kerley. At the time, the American asked the blue for real estate advice on Rome, today he accuses him of “dodging” (ducking) and going from dog to duck with games and double meanings on Instagram stories. Jacobs gives Kerley from the dog and shows himself a lion “You know how it ends when it counts”, with the addition of photos at the finish line in Tokyo, where obviously Kerley is behind. The other reproaches him for having disappeared from confrontations after that success and in fact the two have not seen each other again in the tormented 2022 in which Jacobs placed and removed several appointments due to ailments to then taste the World Cup only in battery and give up due to problems to the left leg. Troubles that then kept him still.

And we arrive here, with a daily and repeated rebound from Rome to the USA “I’m looking for a race where you and I don’t care about anything else”, “Head to head, don’t pretend”. The horizon offers nothing certain, everyone publishes their triumphs and looks for the other. And at this point, the wait is there. Quite high. The date is missing and Michael Johnson takes care of pushing for it, the only one who has taken both 200 and 400 in a single Olympics, the one with the golden shoes. Yesterday he slipped into the contest to hope for a close, increasingly electric encounter, and he also warned that we probably won’t see the two at the same blocks until Budapest. And so he added another pinch, this time to the movement.

Athletics has been trying to renew itself for years and since 2016 it has been an orphan of Bolt who rightly takes advantage of it and never misses the opportunity to repeat how much he is missing… Even in the latest releases, during a promotional tour, he reiterated “no one he took my place, a star is missing ”. Perhaps, even if there are starting to be highly regarded and recognized names, but in any case, now there is a rivalry and he, thanks to him, didn’t have that one: he was a one man show, the lord of records.

It would be up to athletics to agitate these months, to squeeze competition out of the dispute over the distance that has increased interest, even if it remains difficult for a race to invest in both and also for sprinters to like the crossroads, the moment, the place . Kerley moves on the 200 and on the 100 and thus has set the calendar, Jacobs should debut between the end of May and the beginning of June, between Rabat and Florence, where this year (June 2) the Golden Gala is being held, but there are no signatures anywhere, we are at intentions. The horizon remains virtual, among dogs of all sizes, wild animals and cartoon ducks. Waiting for a lead. Waiting for athletics to take advantage of the opportunity. Waiting to understand if the two build an event around each other or by now they can’t stand each other. Waiting, above all, to see who wins. And how.