Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs and world champion Christian Coleman easily advanced to the semi-final of the men’s 60m at the World Indoor Championships 2022 on Saturday. Meanwhile, American Marvin Bracy qualified with the quickest time from the heats after posting a PB of 6.46 seconds to get through his section.
Big names advanced to men’s 60m semi-finalists
As expected, all of the major contenders safely made passage through the men’s 60m heats in the morning session on Saturday’s second day of competition. Read more: Day Two: How to watch live; World Indoor Championships 2022 order of events
Defending champion and world record holder in the discipline, Coleman, won his heat in 6.51 seconds and even had time to ease down at the end to show that he is in good shape after a few niggles in January slowed down his comeback to the track.
The American champion who was out for 18 months for drug testing ‘whereabouts failures’ comes into the championships with a season’s best of 6.45 secs, and holds the world record time at 6.34 secs.
Tokyo Games 100m champion Jacobs of Italy also advanced easily after recording a time of 6.53 secs to win his heat, despite getting off to a slow start. Jacobs was disqualified in his previous race at the venue in the championships preview meeting on 7 March, so he decided to be a little more cautious and stayed in the starting blocks.
Heading the list of sprinters advancing to the semis is 2014 world indoor championships silver medalist Bracy, who looked well in control when winning the fourth heat with a lifetime best.
Femi Ogunode, the 2014 world indoor championships bronze medal winner, opened his 2022 campaign with a promising performance, clocking 6.52 secs to scare his PB of 6.51, which was set back in 2014.
Elsewhere in the men’s 60m heats, Arthur Gue Cissé from the Ivory Coast clocked 6.55 to join the list of semifinalists, with Karl Erik Nazarov of Estonia also running 6.55 to set a national record in the event.
The men’s 60m semi-final heats are scheduled for Saturday’s afternoon session at 1:05 pm ET. The final will also take place on the same day.
