domenica 3 giugno 2018

Athletics Golden Gala (31-05-2018)

Clicca qui per la versione italiana

I park around 19.20. Compared to last year, it's a bit better: there are more open parking lots and I'm not as far away as then, even if I hoped a little better. I take Monte Mario stand tickets, finish side: I want to see Tortu from close and my daughter may also take advantage of the under 14 discount (not all seats have it).

I enter the stadium at 19.45. My place is in the 10th row, but there are so many free places, so we sit around the 25th. You can see the finish area very well, we are also close to the high jump platform, but a bit too on its side: it is hard to see the bar, I can only see it with binoculars. It's quite crowded, more than in recent years: the Tevere stand will be almost completely filled, apart from the two corners, covered by Diamond League decorations, which however occupy less space than other years.


When I arrive, the final of  the Palio of Cities is ongoing: I would know shortly thereafter that I lost a great race of 200 U18. There is also discus, already without Kirchler, and pole vault, in which someone has already left or is about to: 3 will not even clear the initial 5.35. At 20 they start with track races  and we already have Folorunso's PB.


Another expected race starts: high jump. Unlike in major championships, heights increase even too slowly: at the first two (1.80 and 1.84) no one goes out, at the third (1.88) only 3 do. Vallortigara struggles at 1.84, but then clears even 1.91 and 1.94 and ends up coming third, Trost instead goes easily up to 1.88, but then at 1.91 the light goes out. Few doubts about the winner: Lasitskene (or how the hell you write it, maybe it's better to keep calling her Kuchina) misses at 1.91, but she fixes it immediately and closes at 2.02. I must say that in profile Levchenko looks even more beautiful, even if, like almost all high jumpers, her thinness is impressive.


They go on
with the races: the 400 women with the three Italians. I've never seen Lukudo live: she's the smallest of the group. Grenot seems to compete with the first up to the final straight, then goes off. Then the 400 men, with Re clocking a time that usually it was much if an Italian did it in full season, let alone in the beginning. There is also long jump, on the opposite straight: I soon understand that you see better it from the screen, but I do not resign myself, I try to see the run-up live and flight and landing on the screen. From the screen you notice that the Echeverria's jump is very long, but I did not think 8.53. Manyonga's 8.59 is less impressive.

And you get to 100. I thought, or feared, that we would follow it standing, but it's not so. Tortu gets placed on the blocks last, then makes a poor start, so as to leave you the time to think "today is not his day". Instead he makes a great launched run and comes back. After finish, I realized that he was among the first, but not that he had even passed Coleman and had finished third. An Italian third in the 100 in Diamond League, an Italian third in the 100 in Diamond League. We have to repeat it many times, or we will not believe it. Tortu's performance last year suggested that we would get to it one day, but not so soon.

After 100, many leave, as if athletics were just sprint. A sad show. Field events end, but there are still two good middle-distance races. There is always the problem of distinguishing athletes, with shirts all the same, or non-significant. I focus on Italians, who may be distinguished from the shirt and Chiappinelli also because he's the smallest. Good Abikhadar, while Chiappinelli remains long attached to the group, even if in its tail, but exaggerates a bit and pays in the final.


They close with two Paralympic races, but I look only at the first one. I go out satisfied, thinking that maybe this time in Berlin I will not think "but why don't I go to watch fencing?". On returning to the car, however, I stumble into a hole and so lso this time I throw my curses to mayor Raggi













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