Italy’s Lamont Marcell Jacobs claimed a shock gold in the Olympic 100m final.
Jacobs, who only switched away from long jump in 2018, streaked clear to win in 9.80 seconds, 0.04 clear of American Fred Kerley.
Canada’s Andre de Grasse won a second successive Olympic bronze in third.
World champion Christian Coleman and Trayvon Bromell, the world’s fastest in 2021, were both absent from the final. Coleman, banned for whereabouts failures after missing three drugs tests, and Bromell, eliminated in the semi-finals, were joined on the sidelines by the long-retired defending champion Usain Bolt.
Few would have picked Jacobs, who was born in Texas to an American father but moved to his mother’s Italian homeland before his first birthday, as the Jamaican great’s successor.
But the European indoor 60m champion carried the momentum from his fast start all the way to the line to register a time faster than Bolt’s winning mark in Rio.
He was greeted by compatriot Gianmarco Tamberi, who had won a joint high-jump gold just minutes before and wrapped him in the Italian flag and an embrace.
Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes, disqualified for a false start, will be left to wonder what might have been in a final stripped of its usual stars and big names.
His clear false start brought back memories of defending champion Linford Christie’s disqualification at Atlanta 1996 and denied him a shot of joining the most prestigious honour roll in athletics.
Hughes, who made the same mistake at last month’s British Championships, said it was the result of a sudden cramp in his calf.
Meanwhile, a Belarusian sprinter said she was taken to the airport against her wishes on Sunday to board a flight back home after she complained about national coaches at the Tokyo Olympics.
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who was due to compete in the women’s 200 metres on Monday, told Reuters she did not plan to return to her home country. She said she had sought the protection of Japanese police at Tokyo’s Haneda airport so she would not have to board the flight.
“I will not return to Belarus,” she told Reuters in a message over Telegram.
The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement that coaches had decided to withdraw Tsimanouskaya from the Games on doctors’ advice about her “emotional, psychological state”.
The Belarusian Olympic Committee did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment. A Reuters photographer witnessed the athlete standing next to Japanese police.
“I think I am safe,” she said. “I am with the police.”
A police officer at Haneda airport said they were with a female Olympic athlete from Belarus at Terminal 3.
A source at the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, which supports athletes jailed or sidelined for their political views, said Tsimanouskaya planned to request asylum in Germany or Austria on Monday.
Tsimanouskaya filmed a video that was published on Telegram by the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, in which she asked the International Olympic Committee to get involved in her case. The IOC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
