Long jump In 2016, Jacobs won the
Italian Athletics Championships in long jump. With a personal best of 8.07 meters, he ranked tenth on the IAAF (now
World Athletics) world-leading list at the end of the 2017 indoor season. At the 2016 Italian U23 Championships, he jumped 8.48 meters, the best performance ever for an Italian, although this result was not recognized as a
national record due to a 2.8 m/s tailwind, which was 0.8 m/s above the allowable maximum for any record performance. Jacobs did not participate in the 2016 Summer Olympics due to a hamstring injury.
Sprinting In 2019, Jacobs decided to focus his efforts exclusively on
sprinting, citing frequent injuries while long jumping among the reasons for this switch. In July 2019, Jacobs lowered his 100 metres
personal best to 10.03 seconds, making him the third-fastest Italian in history. On 26 June 2021, into a headwind of −1.0 m/s in
Rovereto, he broke the Italian championship record with a time of 10.01 seconds, winning his fourth national title in a row.
2020 Olympics at Resisprint 2020. Jacobs won his first 100 metres heat at the
2020 Tokyo Olympics in 9.94 seconds, improving his own Italian record by 0.01. In the semi-final, he was third with a time of 9.84 seconds, setting a new European record and qualifying for the final with the third overall fastest time. He is the first Italian to ever reach an Olympic 100 m final. In the final, Jacobs
won the gold medal with a time of 9.80 seconds, beating
Fred Kerley (9.84) and
Andre De Grasse (9.89). Jacobs is the first Italian to win the gold medal in the event, and the first European to win since
Linford Christie won the event at the 1992
Olympics in Barcelona. His effort broke the European record he set in the semi-final earlier that day, recording the fastest time ever run by an athlete that is neither American nor Jamaican. Due to this performance, Jacobs is tied with
Steve Mullings as the 10th fastest man of all time. Jacobs was not favored to win the race, with
bookmakers giving him a three percent chance of winning. Jacobs later won a second gold medal in the
4 × 100 metres as part of the
Italian relay team, along with
Lorenzo Patta,
Fausto Desalu and
Filippo Tortu. It was the first time Italy had ever won this event, and also the first time Italy had earned a medal in the event in 73 years. Jacobs ran the team's second leg (split time: 8.925), contributing to its total run time of 37.50 seconds, setting a new Italian record. Jacobs ended his season shortly after the Olympics, citing fatigue, and cancelling two upcoming
Diamond League appearances. After the Games, it was reported that Giacomo Spazzini, who had worked as Jacobs' nutritionist, was involved in a steroid investigation in Italy. In response, Jacobs' agent stated that the athlete had cut ties with Spazzini several months before the Olympics. In 2022, the investigators established that Spazzini himself was a victim of collaboration with a person who turned out to be a fake doctor: the biologist Antonio Armiento who negotiated a sentence of 1 year and 11 months and 20 days for falsely declaring he was a doctor and free prescription of antihistamines and diuretics.
2021/2022 indoor season Jacobs returned to competition in February 2022, winning the 60 m race at the
ISTAF Indoor in
Berlin with a time of 6.51. In subsequent races, which included winning the
national 60 m indoor title, he lowered his season best to 6.49, arriving at the
world indoor championships in
Belgrade with the 5th fastest time in the season. In his semi-final he equalled the world leading time of 6.45, held by pre-championship favorite and world record holder
Christian Coleman and Bahamian sprinter
Terrence Jones, setting a new
national record. In the final he edged Coleman by 3 thousands of a second setting a new
European record of 6.41, winning the gold medal and becoming the
4th fastest man in history on such distance.
2022 outdoor season Jacobs was supposed to start his outdoor season competing in the 100 metres at the 2022
Kip Keino Classic in
Nairobi,
Kenya, however he missed his debut after being hospitalised for a gastrointestinal infection. He officially opened his outdoor season with a time of 10.04, winning an international meet in
Savona, after changing his original plan of competing in the 200 metres. Having sustained a slight injury to his
biceps femoris, he took the decision to withdraw from three
Diamond League meets which were on his calendar. Having had to withdraw before the
semi-finals of the
2022 World Championships due to a thigh injury, at the
2022 European Championships in Munich, Jacobs won the 100 m final in a time of 9.95 seconds, beating reigning champion
Zharnel Hughes into the second position (9.99s), with
Jeremiah Azu completing the podium with a time of 10.13. ==Statistics==