Italian Reggae Artist Alborosie Defends Olympic 100m Champ Marcell Jacobs Over Questions About His Win
Italian Reggae artist Alborosie took on ZJ Sparks and some of her Instagram followers after spotting a news item published in The Times which was shared by her, regarding 100-metre Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs, which he regarded as undesirable.
The article which was labelled “exclusive”, was headlined “Police probe Italian 100m champion’s nutritionist over alleged link to steroids”, with the sub-heading Bodybuilder who claimed credit for Lamont Marcell Jacobs’s Olympic gold medal accused as part of ‘Operation Muscle Bound’.
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“Wonda which junk yaad you go dig fi find them fake news yah … and post them 😃 let the youth shine .. 🤣🆙🇯🇲,” Alborosie wrote in response to Sparks’ post.
When sophronia_80 told Alborosie that “other news outlets are reporting this same thing” the Rastafari Anthem singer, who also holds Jamaican citizenship, responded sarcastically.
“@sophronia_80 guess all from UK 🇬🇧 🤣🤣🤣,” he retorted.
Alborosie then added: “Also wonder if people know the man is a POLICE and RUN for the ITALIAN POLICE … so how police a investigate him 🤔🤔🤔🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣”
He then got into an argument with yesamfamus_therapist who had asked: “@alborosieofficial Does that mean he doesn’t cheat?”
“@yesamfamus_therapist does that mean he cheated? you a judge?” Alborosie, who was born in Sicily, responded.
Contrary to Alborose’s claims though, the Italian publication La Repubblica, carried an article similar to The Times, two days ago.
The Times article, which has been cited by Yahoo France, MSN and others, noted that Jacobs stopped working with the nutritionist this year, and that the “Italian sprinter who won a shock Olympic 100m gold was forced to split with his sports nutritionist, who is the subject of a police investigation into the illegal distribution of anabolic steroids”.
Last Sunday, Jacobs sprinted to victory in the men’s 100-metre finals, setting a European record of 9.80 seconds, and, on Friday, copped a second gold medal as part of the Italian 4×100 metre men’s relay team.
According to The Times, Jacobs “only broke ten seconds for the 100 metres in May, and as a consequence was not included in the Athletics Integrity Unit’s drug testing pool, which targets the world’s best athletes” and “in the 100m final he was the only sprinter not on the AIU list”.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) president Giovanni Malago as saying that doping suspicions aimed at Jacobs “are embarrassing and unpleasant” after numerous media houses, including the Washington Post and the Times had questioned the integrity of Jacobs’ 100-metre win, “despite having not gone under 10 seconds until this year”.
The Washington Post had ruffled Malago’s feathers after writing after what has been described a Jacobs’ ‘unexpected victory’, that “the history of track and field casts suspicion on sudden and immense improvement”, in reference to doping cases which have taken place in the past.
“Jacobs deserves the benefit of the doubt, but his sport does not,” the Washington Post had noted, while The Times also aroused suspicion after writing that athletics’ dark history with doping “means the arrival of any new star will alert the more sceptical”.
However, the Italian Olympic Committee chief had rubbished Malago aspersions that his athlete was not “clean”, complaining to Rai Radio 1 that “the remarks of some of your colleagues are a source of great regret and embarrassment from every point of view”, according to Reuters.
“We are talking about athletes, in this case, who are subjected to systematic and daily anti-doping checks….When you set a national or even continental record that number doubles… It is truly something unpleasant, it shows how some are not able to accept defeat,” he said.