European Athletics Championships in Zurich (2014)

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The European Athletics Championships in Munich will start soon  (but first there are the swimming ones in Rome ...). For me it will be the sixth live, fourth consecutive. I have already talked about Gothemburg 2006, Amsterdam 2016 and Berlin 2018, this time it's Zurich 2014's turn.

I have seen four out of six days live (in Munich it will be three and a half out of seven). I had started on Thursday morning, with the women's race walk, in the city center, with the first disappointment: I was hoping for a medal that did not arrive, even though I knew it was not very likely. Then I took the tram to the stadium, which is a couple of kilometers from the center. On the tram a problem was deciphering the announcements, but I discovered that it was also a problem for the Germans: once, after an announcement of which I hadn't understood one word, I heard Germans ask each other "what did he say?" "ah, I have no idea!".

Arriving and seeing the sign "Letzigrund Stadion" gave me an emotion comparable to the one I had experienced a few months earlier entering the Porte des Mosquieters at Roland Garros. The stadium is almost entirely underground, you have to go down to take a seat. Entering, I just had time to see, in the pole vault qualification, Gibilisco's exit: I will always be thankful to him for the emotions of Paris. This was fairly planned, but it was one of the many disappointments: Italian athletics was entering the black period that culminated in London 2017, when we tought each championships had gone badly until we saw the next ones. I kept asking myself "why don't I go to watch fencing?" (where Italians won).

A great protagonist of those Europeans was the mascot: the cow Cooly, who first performed in high jump (fosbury), then in pole vault, beating the "bovine world records". The day ended with the men's 3000st, where the winner, a Frenchman, took off his jersey before the finish and was disqualified. As France had another disqualified (in 110hs) the Neue Zuercher Zeitung spoke of "black day formFrance". I was thinking about how I wanted to have a black day with two golds and a bronze.

The next day, at the end of the morning session, I went to a Caribbean restaurant near the stadium for lunch. Some disreputable-looking people entered, followed by a more reassuring one, who at first seemed like a dad with a baby. When she approached, I discovered that she was a mother instead, but not an ordinary mother: she was Spotakova! I also took a selfie, which was lost (the "disreputable people" were her fan club). The afternoon began with the 50 km race walk, dominated by the French Diniz, then I returned to the stadium, where for us the main race was the women's 400. Grenot started strong, but there was always the fear that she would collapse, like two years before (where she had collapsed in the final straight and finished sixth), but this time she kept to the end and was gold medal.

Saturday morning I remember that I was on the straight opposite the finish line and I could see clearly the second leg of the 4X100, with Schippers. In the end I moved to the lakefront for the last kilometers of the women's marathon: Straneo was leading along with a Frenchwoman and, after the silver at the World Championships the year before, I was convinced that she would win. Instead she was silver again. In the evening I remember Pedroso's fifth place in the 400hs, which years later became a fourth.

Sunday morning was dedicated to the men's marathon. The course consisted of four laps: one of the highest points passed next to the Polytechnic, which was also close to my hotel. Next to it there was also a funicular, which led to another point of the route, on the lakefront. By going up and down, I was able to see 8 passings, up to the last, in which Meucci was leading alone. I tried to reach the finish area, but there was too much crowd (in the second photo, taken from Cooly's FB page, like the other one).

On the last afternoon, there were great expectationns among locals for the women's 4X100: newspapers sang the praises of the new star Kambundji (who, of course, was not what she is now). The expectations  were disappointed: the Swiss quartet lost the baton at the start. There was also a rumor that Kambundji, in the first leg, had forgotten to take it at the start. Instead it seems that she had lost it by hitting her knee with it in starting. With the exclusion of Switzerland and the Netherlands, Italy finished fourth, 4/100 from the bronze: in the end what should have been our weakest relay was the one that finished best- Women's 4X400, the best rated, arrived 7th (but, given the times, it could never have finished better than 5th), men's 4X100 didn't finish the final, men's 4X400 out of the final.

Zurich was followed by Amsterdam, then Berlin. There should have been Paris, but now we are back with Munich.