lunedì 31 luglio 2017

European Athletics U20 Championships in Grosseto, Day 2 (21-07-2017)

Clicca qui per la versione italiana
I arrive in advance, at 8.50. I find the stand almost empty, I sit in the same place as yesterday, in the finish area. Dorio arrives shortly after me. It starts with hurdles, shot put, with Giampietro who stumbles to qualify (bad technique, coaches behind me say) and the high jump, all women's. A problem in following the field events is finding the scoreboards often located far from the correspondent sector: yesterday in the women's PV qualifiers the footpaths were, of course, side by side, but the respective scoreboards were 60 meters apart. By 10 the stand is already fuller than yesterday afternoon.

The men's hurdles start, and in the second heat there is the farce (which for somebody then becomes a tragedy). They start, but then a couple of athletes stops at the first two hurdles, another pair at half: in two, Italian Montini and a Frenchman go on until finish. Montini wins, with a perfect race, according to the Sector coaches, but on arrival he discovers that it is no good: there had been a false start. No one had heard the counter-starter: according to rumors overheard in the stands they wanted to limit the noise pollution (but then put the music in full volume)! Dorio shouts at him, "Do not worry, you've warmed up." After long discussions, they get to repeat the race after the last heat (although not all agreed that it would fit), but this time Montini can not do it. Other heats also have delays for false starts, sometimes called back, so a 20 minute delay is accumulated: and they said than the disqualification rule on first false start would make times faster!

When track events end, I move to the pole vault sector. The heat is felt, though a cloud comes every now and then. Duplantis looks even younger than his age, unlike the other star Karalis, which seems older. When it comes to Duplantis, I breake one of my basic rules, "you either live of film": I'm too busy photographing it to appreciate the jump. However, he easily clears 5.20 and then finishes qualifying with only one jump, for which he had waited 2h45. Karalis misses it 4 times (they make him repeat an attempt because he broke the auction) and is out.




The morning schedule ends when the afternoon one was supposed to start (with the sptathlon javelin, which can not begin until PV ends because runways cross). There is time for a sandwich at the stadium bar. The eptathlon javelin starts with a 45 minutes delay, the "single" race followed, only with 20. The race of the eptathlon takes place with a single megagroup of 26; Shukh and Ruckstuhl make measures that in the single race would have been worth respectively silver and bronze. In the "single" javelin, Visca takes second place in the second throw and keeps it to the end: little pathos. The pathos, however, is not missing in the women's triple jumps, with so many changes of leadership, until the last jump, but from my position one understands little. 



For Tortu's race the grandstand is now full, with so many people on the aisles. Perhaps the should have diverted a few people to the grandstand opposite, which remains empty. After the victory of the Italian sprinter, I'm preparing to leave, but to get to the end of the grandstand I need a good quarter of an hour, because many exits are blocked as they bring to the area reserved for athletes. From the track edge I still see the end of the eptathlon, then I go.

Sadly I had to go to mid-day (having to leave for the next day), but I think London is approaching ...




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