Interviewed after his shock Olympic sprint triumph, Italy's Marcell Jacobs thanked his mind coach, and it was not the first time he had indicated that overcoming mental blocks was crucial in his path towards victory.
Jacobs, 26, who won the men's 100 metres final in Tokyo on Sunday to become the first Italian to take the most coveted title in athletics, was almost unknown in Italy before his gold medal, having made dramatic but little-noticed progress over recent months.
"As a child I was always different from the others," Jacobs wrote in the long article. "Mixed-race ... the son of separated parents whose father simply wasn't there." This upbringing generated insecurities that made him seek excuses for his failings rather than throw himself fully into seeking success. He became known as "the one that something strange always happened to before the starting gun".
"I was not interested in whether he decided to contact or not contact his father, that was a choice I left completely up to him. My interest was in him making peace with that internally."
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