Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs fails to make world 100m final

BUDAPEST - Rusty Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs failed to make the final of the men's 100m at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest on Sunday.

In a loaded field, Jacobs could only manage 10.05sec to finish fifth in a semi-final won by American Noah Lyles in 9.87sec.

Only the top two in each of the three semi-finals plus the next two fastest advance to the final, scheduled for 1710 GMT.

Jacobs, with only one outdoor race to his name this season before arriving in the Hungarian capital, had struggled out of his heat on Saturday, and there was more pain to come for the Italian in the semi-final in sweltering conditions at the National Athletics Centre.

In a loaded field, Jacobs trailed in behind Lyles, second-placed Abdul Hakim Sani Brown of Japan, who clocked 9.97, Kenya's Ferdinand Omanyala and Britain's Eugene Amo-Dadzie.

The result means there will be no clash between defending world champion Fred Kerley and Jacobs.

Jacobs beat the American to Olympic gold in Tokyo in an European record of 9.80sec two years ago, but the pair have not met on the track since, Kerley claiming gold in Eugene last year with Jacobs in an injury-enforced absence.

This season, Jacobs has endured a niggling back problem and has raced outdoors only once, finishing seventh in 10.21sec at the Paris Diamond League meet last month. - AFP