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I arrive at the race walk course around 8.15 am, wondering who made me get up. I meet a group of Florentines, supporters of Cosi (which I confess I know little), with dedicated t-shirts. We leave, and after seeing them pass for the first time, I leave the roadside and try to sit in the stands. The first two entrances are reserved, so I feared a Doha-style prank, but the third is open to everyone. In my stand there are few people, there are a little more in the one opposite. As usual, the attendance of race walk is very different from that of the track races: apart from the Germans, the most numerous are Italians and Spaniards, followed by the Poles.
From the second lap (they returned to the 2 km laps) the group broke into two equal parts: 14 in the lead (out of 29), Cosi slightly detached and then, more detached, the others. This splitting will remain until the end: there will be over 2 minutes between the 11th and the 12th (also considering that two of the first group will later be disqualified). Cosi will lose ground very slowly until the last kilometers, thus recovering positions and finishing 10th. On the third lap the penalties already begin, at half race there will already be three disqualified, including a Brit who was in the leading group and the German n.1, who, when interviewed, will apologize, cloe to the tears. But then nothing will happen anymore, they won't even show the warnings on the scoreboard anymore. Yet I had many doubts about the pace of some walkers when they lost contact with the leading group (especially the Turkish and French).
At 12 km the leading group was reduced to 7: 3 Spaniards, 2 Italians (Stano and Fortunato), one Swedish and one Turkish. Immediately after, the Swedish Karlstroem attacks and the group falls apart: first Fortunato comes off, then Stano, but Stano will lose more and more ground, until he is overtaken not only by the other Italian, but also by the French who had detached first, and finished eighth . Two Spaniards remain with the Swede and after a couple of kilometers one of them, the defending champion Alvaro Martin overtakes him and takes off. Fortunato is fifth: when they show the passage to the 17 km I notice that the fourth is close and the third not very far, but when they pass in front of me I understand that they are unreachable. It ends like this: Martin, Karlstroem (who makes the last round with a hat with horns), two other Spaniards, then Fortunato.
Once off the stands, I look for Cosi's fans to compliment thm, but instead I manage compliment directly him, at the exit of the mixed zone. As soon as the last competitor arrives, the female athletes enter the course: there is just enough time to get a drink and off we go. This time the grandstand is more crowded, also given the presence of a German medal candidate: it is certainly not a problem, however, to find a seat. The speaker recalls that there are only four athletes with personal best under 1h30 ', including our Trapletti and the German Feige. Here too, about half of the athletes immediately lave behind the other half, but two take even 40" for each km, and one will even be penalized after 5 km and disqualified shortly after, while the other will close 11' behinbehindd (therefore lapped), but surpassing two.
The Spanish Perez tries a first attack after 4 km, but gets a warning and gives up The speaker invites the attendance to dance, first macarena, then "il ballo del qua qua" (then also something else). Halfway through the race, Perez attacks again, but with a clear suspension and in fact one lap later she goes into penalty. She will then recover up to seventh place, just over 1' from the lead, but in the end she will be disqualified. There are 7 left, including tTrapletti, but towards 14 km, with the attack of a Ukrainian, the group falls apart and Trapletti remains on sound. Of the six before her, however, then one will collapse and another will be penalized, so she will finish fifth. From mid-race it also rains heavily, so I can't wait for the race to end. The Ukrainian is reabsorbed and at a certain point the German takes the lead, but a couple of laps from the end the winner of the 35 km, the Greek Ntrismpioti (or Drisbioti, if we follow the pronunciation) takes the lead and keeps it until the end . Here too, then, as at the World Championships, the two walking races have the same winner: could it not be that they are a little too similar?
At the end, the display on the finish line stops working: it only gives the race time, not the finishers. So, I don't know how many are arrived, but I an't resist the rain anymore: I have a look at the mixed sone, then I seek shelter in a bar, despite the speaker invites to stay for the victory ceremony.
In the evening, after meeting Tortu at the station, I manage to arrive with a certain margin, even if less than I would have liked. After eating a horrible pasta at a kiosk and been to the store, I enter within a few minutes to start, they are presenting the pole vaulters, then I stop at the kiosk and I miss the first jumps. My sector, like most of the stadium, is a little less full than yesterday. The most present groups always seem to be Swiss and British. My position, just over the middle of the straight opposite the finish line, is ideal for pole vault (and that was what I wanted), but I also see the javelin landing well, but not so the finish.
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Less busy schedule than the other days: if at that time it was often difficult to follow the different races at the same time, now there are moments of pause. There are only two competitions: men's pole vault and women's javelin. In the PV they start at 5.50: Duplantis and Lavillenie pass, 5 clear it on first, another 5 on second and two remain with NM (in the whole race there will not be a third successful attempt). At 5.65 another 3 get out, at 5.75 Duplantis and Lavillenie pass again and the others clear it all.
The women's javelin confirms its current low level: in the first round only one over 60, in the end there will be four. With the best seasonal result of an Italian (which, as we know, was not enough to qualify) we would be second, then seventh at the end. At the second throw, Tzengko goes over 65 meters and in these times we have the impression, later confirmed, that the race is over. Behind her, it will revive at the last throw: Spotakova, who was fourth one centimeter from the third and about twenty from the second, improves and goes to second place, but immediately afterwards Vilagos still surpasses her with 62 meters. We therefore have in the first two places the former stars of age group competitions, who presumably will duel for the next decade and maybe beyond.
The track races begin with the women's 800, where the public is excited for an athlete from Munich, who is never in the race for the first places and finishes seventh. Hodgkinson wins, but less clearly than expected. Then there are the last qualifications of the program, the 100hs heats. In the first I don't even notice that Bogliolo, announced, did not start, indeed I think she finished second (yet there was no one with a blue jersey: what did I see?), In the second Mosetti seems to me fourth or fifth, instead is sixth, clearly out. In the last one, at least, Di Lazzaro (which the speaker calls "Di Lazzàro") wins, with the overall best time.
Then there are the 4X400 relays. In the men's one, Great Britain remained in the lead throughout the race, but in the final they were threatened first by France, then by Belgium, who finished second. Italy is last after two legs, but in the group, but then it messes up in the exchange and loses contact, remaining detached until the end and also making a worse time than in the heat. In the women's race, after three legs Belgium is leading, but Holland, third, is close, so it is already understood how it will end. Bol, however, waits 150 meters from the finish to attack and around 70 meters she makes a gap. Only after the finish do I notice the times, which are excellent: with 3'22" one finishes fourth. In both races, Germany comes seventh, but in the interviews the relay runners seem satisfied as if they had won a medal. In the celebrations, the speaker sings "Happy birthday" to Klaver and interviews Bol, who speaks with very high voice, I had never noticed.
During the 4X400 the PV medals are also decided: the German Lita Baehre, last to jump on the second attempt, is the first, after Duplantis, to clear 5.85 and will remain the only. As the speaker immediately clarifies, the bronze goes to Lillefosse with 5.75. There are more than 20 minutes before the last race on the track, the 3000 women's steeplechase: we therefore focus on the epilogue of the PV. Surprisingly, Duplantis does not wait for Lita Baehre to be eliminated on his own, but shows up first at 5.90, after the German's mistake, and then also at 5.95, after Lita Bahre has passed to that height, still missing it . This time Lita Baehre does not go up again, but he tries 5.95 again and misses, but this time by a little. Left alone, Duplantis clears 6.06 during the 3000 steeplechase, with his usual disarming simplicity now one thinks that his real race, the one for the world record, begins, instead he closes here.
The 3000sc therefore remain the final race: the Albanian Guga starts on fire (first kilometer in 3'00 "), two remain behind her, but the German Meyer, initially fifth, overtakes them all and closes second, for a moment deluding also to undermine the first place.
The attendance seems large to me only when it comes out. Once again they have to quota the accesses to the metro: the attendant orders to stop several times, with an ever louder voice, but without taking into consideration the hypothesis that someone may not understand German. Ultimately, it was a bit of an "old-fashioned" day for us: there were only three Italians competing (counting the relay as one) and two disappointed. Tomorrow, however, Vallortigara and Crippa remain.
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