Su Bingtian of China ran 9.83 to be the fastest qualifier in the men’s 100m dash semifinal. He will be the first nonblack to compete in the 8-man Race to Be the Fastest Man in the World since the 1980 Moscow Summer Games. After 72 consecutive black finalists over the last 9 Olympics, the Streak is over.
He’s the first Asian 100m male finalist since Takayoshi Yoshioka in the 1932 Los Angeles Games.
I wonder whether Su Bingtian will have anything left in the final in a couple of hours. He certainly ran the race of his life in the semifinal.
WHAT A FINISH!
Su Bingtian runs a 9.83 to win semifinal three in the men's 100m. #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/C1hxDUNqUB
What next, a nonblack starting cornerback in the NFL?
Spoiler alert, the winner of the final was Lamont Marcel Jacobs of Italy, the American born son of an American soldier and an Italian mother, in 9.80.
Lamont Marcell Jacob has a black father, an American Army soldier and was born in El Paso; his mother is Italian and he was largely raised in Italy. He’s 50% black by nature, but mostly Italian by nurture. He speaks Italian, he says, better than he speaks English.
