It's a night that pays back for all the disappointments and frustrations of these years, for all the times I thought 'why don't I go fencing' (to see Italians win), for the discouragement of London: after the Olympics, World Indoor Championships, European Outdoor and Indoor Championships, Diamond League and European Team Championships, Gimbo Tamberi also wins the Outdoor World Championships. Of the previous victories, I was only present at the two outdoor European Championships, Amsterdam 2016 and Munich 2022.
The stadium is a bit fuller than yesterday. The stands above the first bend (where high jump is) and above the straight opposite the finish line are almost completely so, there are a few empty spaces over the second bend, while the second deck on the finish line side is almost completely empty. You see a lot more Italian flags than usual, and they get more and more noticed (but this time there is a group of locals behind me). The high jump starts towards 8: at the presentation Barshim (who is presented last, despite the fact that the No. 1 in the ranking is Harrison) is the one who gets the most applause, followed by Tamberi. In Akamatsu, who jumps first, I seem to recognise one of the Japanese in the national team jersey whom I had met in a pub yesterday, but maybe it is me who (like almost all Westerners) cannot recognise Asians, it seems strange to me that an athlete is in a pub the night before the race .
They start with 2.20, but Barshim, Harrison and Tamberi pass. Only three, including Fassinotti, do not cler it ion first. At 2.25, surprisingly only 4 clear it on first and neither Tamberi nor Barshim are among tham. Both will make up for it on second by a wide margin and Tamberi will celebrate as if it were a much bigger jump. In the end two will go out: Fassinotti and the Ukrainian Dorosschuk. Tamberi clears 2.29 in the first, with great confidence, as did Barshim and 3 others. After 3 heights only 2 remained without misses: Harrison and Woo. 4 are out, including Starc, McEwen, who keeps jumping very high and then knocking down the bar with his heels, is saved at third.
At 2.33 there are 7 left. They are cleared on first by Barshim, then Harrison and then Tamberi, by a very wide margin (at least that's how it looks to me from my position). I get up on my feet to cheer, I begin to feel the medal close. Zayas also makes it, celebrating as if he had won a medal, then Poyte on second, while the other two save attempts: at 2.36 they are therefore still 7. Barshim jumps first and misses: I barely glimpse his jump because it takes place during the finish of a 400 semifinal. Three others miss, including Harrison for the first time, and it is Tamberi's turn. Gimbo clears the bar, perhaps not by the margin of 2.33, but still clearly, as I had rarely seen him do on such high heights. I begin to believe in gold: it seems difficult for anyone to exceed 2.38, and I begin the countdown to the clinched medal. On the second Barshim misses again sharply, while Harrison makes it. I thought Barshim would save his attempt, but instead he tries 2.36 again and misses, never giving the impression that he could make it. This miss also goes almost unnoticed due to the coincidence with the final of the women's 1500.
At 2.38 they then go Tamberi and Harrison. At the first they both miss cleanly, at the second they both give the impression they can do it, but Tamberi more so. It is the American's third attempt when the track events have just finished and it is his third miss. The party starts: Tamberi takes off his jersey and goes under the bend, which is the sector with the most Italians. Flags can be seen, waving like none had been seen in an athletics stadium for decades: you know that in Tokyo there could be no flags of any country, but even if the public had been, allowed I don't know how many Italians would have gone, certainly not me. At the loudspeaker they play 'Sarà perché ti amo', then 'Nel blu dipinto di blu' (but in Spanish), then 'Un'estate italiana' (the theme of the 1990 World Cup, which in English was 'To be number one'), then 'Sarà perché ti amo' again. As the attendance (excluding the Italians, of course) begins to leave, the photographers and even Barshim's son, whom Tamberi puts on the mattress, enter the platform, but officially the race is not over, the scoreboard reads 2.40. So it seems that Tamberi has left himself an attempt at that height, but one wonders if he will actually do it. He does, but goes under the bar. He is interviewed, and after a sentence in English he greets in Italian, thinking (rightly) that there are almost only Italians left.
For the rest, after a day in which, among other things, I had swum in a historic pool of Magyar swimming and had seen Tamberi on a billboard (not of the World Championships), I arrived at the stadium late. I had already left late, but I hoped to make it earlier because I had discovered that there is a direct tram from the hotel to the stadium. Too bad it was so full that I couldn't get in, so I had to fall back on the route of the other days. We enter more quickly than usual, also because they don't seem to want to do any checks: I make it in time to see the last heat of the 100hs on the screen. I get some food, so I can only see the finish of the first heat of 800, with Tecuceanu easily holding third position and qualifying. The other Italians also did well: Barontini qualified, Pernici came close, in a round with many excellent eliminations (3 Kenyans out of 4, Bol, Tuka).
The track events continued with the semifinals of the women's 400hs. we get to the third, with Folorunso who would pass even if she came fourth with a time of 54.19, i.e. 3/100 less than the Italian record, and given the form she is in I think she could do it. In fact she came fourth, but with a time beyond expectations: 53.89! Muhammad out. There were also surprises in the semifinals of the men's 400: in the first, Van Niekerk collapsed in the final and finished third (but was repechaged), in the second Hudson-Smith won in 44.26: after 36 years, the European record fell. Ingvaldsen, who had come close in the heat, finished third and was also repechaged. In the third, two of them, including Gardiner, stopped due to injury and Re finished fourth with a respectable 45.29.
Then there are the finals. In the women's 1500, Kipyegon starts at 200 metres, makes the gap bigger and bigger and wins in a monstrous time, considering the tactical start: 3:54.87. Hassan again suffers a comeback by an Ethiopian, but this time she is overtaken and finishes third. Cavalli broke away at 500 metres, came second to last, but still set a personal best. We closed with the 3000 steeplechase, which I followed very little due to the concomitance with the high heights epilogue: El Bakkali pulled away from Girma and could even afford to slow down in the final.
rallentare nel finale.
But there was also another field event, which is the one for which, outside Italy, this evening will be remembered most: the women's discus. There was also Osakue, but she was never in the competition: a foul, a 61.13 that it was immediately clear would not be enough to get into the top eight and another foul, with which she finished last. Altman's 68.57 in the first round already seemed to reserve the gold, and in fact after three rounds she led by almost two metres. In the third round there is the surprise of the other American Tausaga, who after two disastrous throws comes fourth with 65.56. She is already jubilating as if she had won a medal, but in the fourth she makes an even longer throw, but a foul. Everything happens in the fifth: Van Klinken goes from seventh to second, Feng overtakes her, but above all Tuluaga improves by another 4 metres and takes the lead. Altman improves, but remains behind. In the sixth round the positions did not change: Tausaga wins, in one of the biggest surprises in the history of the World Championships.
We are thus at 3 medals, what I considered the minimum goal and what we had not reached since 2003 anyway. But it is not over.
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