World Athletics Championships in Budapest - Day 8 (26-08-2023)

 Clicca qui per la versione italiana

Let's start from the bottom: the penultimate day of the World Championships is over and Italy has four medals, France and Germany zero (the latter still has some chance of winning one, the former really does not). Something absolutely unimaginable not only six years ago, after the disaster of London, but also two and a half, After London I hoped that better times would come, we couldn't keep on "digging after hitting rock bottom", but I didn't think so far and so fast.

 The fourth medal came from the men's 4X100: already at the presentation you could hear the Italians cheering as never before, at least in the stadium. Tortu takes the baton third, after the USA and Jamaica and ahead of Great Britain: he overtakes also the Jamaicans and pulls away or the British. Silver in 37.62, better than yesterday and only 12/100 off the Tokyo time.

But even more incredible was the women's' fourth place. A medal from the men's relay was still conceivable, albeit difficult, but if they had told me on the eve of the race that the women's 4X100 would finish fourth, I would have thought of accidents or mass disqualifications. At the second exchange the Ivory Coast falls down so Italy finds itself clearly fourth, behind the USA, Jamaica and Great Britain. In the fanchor leg, while Sha'Carri resisted Jackson's comeback for the title, Pavese resists Swoboda's comeback and remains fourth.

 Before that there were the heats of the 4X400 and here too good but still predictable results for the men incredible for the women. The men qualified as third thanks to a final comeback by Sibilio, who slipped inside. Among the women, already after the second leg there are USA and GB clearly ahead of Italy and Belgium, but in the fourth we catch up even on the Americans. At the end, Belgium also overtakes us and we finish fourth, but then become third due to the disqualification of the USA. But the incredible thing was the time: 3:23.84, an Italian record by over a second. And then we had an Olympic finalist (although the relay was not her stength...), today not even a semifinalist.

 The day started shortly after 7 a.m. with the Marathon. I arrived on the course, at the point closest to my hotel, and the clock read 21'. The 'outward' passage was at the 5 km mark, and so there has already been one; I therefore have to wait for the 'inward' passage, which is shortly after the 9 km mark (it is 4 laps of 10 km, plus an initial one of 2.195, which for the most part go back and forth on an avenue). Seeing the passage, with the athletes still almost all in a group, I go towards the finish, to see if it is feasible to see it. I arrive when the last athletes are passing, some at the end of the first lap, others at the beginning of the second, and I discover that there would be room, especially on the outward side, but I don't see a screen, although there should be one, since the speaker talks about it, so I wouldn't know what happens between one passage and the next, apart from the updates on the site (which doesn't always work). I therefore decide to move to the front of the Opera, where I had seen a screen a few days earlier when passing by.

 

It is an ideal arrangement: you can find a place without any problem and you can see the screen. The only drawback is the somewhat high volume of the loudspeaker (both the speaker and the music), The first passage I see is the return passage of the second lap, with a leading group of 26 athletes, including Epis. Among the pursuers I notice a Peruvian woman who looks like she is running a middle-distance race. On the outward passage of the third lap the Italian is losing contact, on the return lap the leading group has shrunk to 11, which by the end of the lap has become 6 and a kilometre later 4, all Ethiopians. While the speakers are chatting, one of the leaders can be seen on the screen stopping: at the possible decisive moment of the race, on the screen they show an interview, in Hungarian of course, done on the stage in front of me. In the end, the leaders pass at the start of the last lap, and they are three. On the return, which is the 40th km, the athletes pass one at a time, the first three within 20 seconds of each other, the fourth, the Moroccan Gardadi, even further back. One kilometre later, however, the fourth will have already overtaken the third, who will lose another two positions.

After the arrival of Epis, who will recover another position and finish 12th, I head towards the stadium. On the tram I meet a German who has been to two World Championships that I skipped, Daegu 2011 and Beijing 2015 (but, if I understand correctly, not Doha): Germans and Estonians will be the dominant presences this morning.

 I arrive at the stadium as the first heat of the 110hs decathlon, the only track event of the morning, is starting. When I arrive in front of the screens, the second one is starting and I decide to watch it there. Then I go to buy my T-shirt, and I see that the third one is starting. I think about seeing that one from the screen too, but after a false start I decide instead to go in: I will end up seeing it started. When I get to my seat, I notice that they did not check tickets at the entrance to the sector, so I could have gone to the other side and seen the women's shot put qualification better, but by now I am too tired to move, which means that I will see the decathlon discus better and move on later, for the pole vault.

 In the shot put, the qualifying standard (19.10) seemed exaggerated to me, but instead eight achieved it and one got to the final with 18.59. In the decathlon, after Neugebauer's disaster in the 110hs, Lapage leads ahead of Warner and the German. In the discus, Lapage and Neubauer are in the first group, Warner, with Victor, in the second. Lapage makes 50 metres, Neubauer makes two throws that at the start seem to go very far, but then land suddenly, and stops at 47. In the second group, Victor beats the best performance of the championships twice, taking it to 54.97, while Warner stops at 45 metres. Between the two groups, they run a children's race similar to the pre-Golden Gala 'Palio dei Comuni'. The explanations are only in Hungarian: we understand that it is a mixed relay with legs of 200 metres, but only at the end do I realise that there are 10 legs.

When the discus is over, besides going to the bathroom and getting some food (which they all do, with queues as a consequence), I move to the other side, to closely follow the pole vault (another thing that almost everyone does, apart from those who were already there). I arrive that there is already one athlete (Garland, seventh overall) with two faults at the opening height, 4.50: he will also miss the third, The same thing will happen to Nilsson at 4.80 and in the second group, to Owens-Delerme (so far sixth) at 4.40. In the first group, Neugebauer makes 5.10 and celebrates by going under the bend and calling a wave. First is Williams with 5.30. The second group, which started later, is left: I decide that I will watch it as long as the top ranked men, Warner and Victor, are in the race, then at 4.90 I see that it is getting late and I decide that it will be the last height anyway. The Canadian gets over it, but it will be the last one, the Grenadine does not.

In the evening I had arrived at my seat that the first group of the decathlon javelin was in the third round and the pole was finishing the first height, 5.55. Surprisingly, I discovered that the pole was not where all the other races in the event were held. i.e. on the side of the second bend, but on the outside of the track, where the other days there were the horizontal jumps, a much more favourable position for me. In addition to the Italians, you see many Spaniards, in all sectors, as well as the usual Dutch, concentrated in my area. given the day, there are also many Swedes

 

The decathlon javelin featured athletes from the second half of the ranking in the first group, those from the first half in the second. In the first group, Estonian Oiglane exceeded 70 metres, in the second Victor with 68, overtook Neubauer in third place. The 1500 would then confirm the Lapage-Warber-Victor podium, with Tilga overtaking Neubauer in fourth place. The athletes would not, however, be able to do their classic collective victory lap, as the 4X100 was presented immediately: they had to limit themselves to parading around the outside of the first bend.

The pole vault was another incredible race, hardly imaginable until recently. The progression is very fast: 5.55-5.75-5.85, then up 5 cm at a time. The 5.55 was clered by everybody on first or second, at 5.75 two came out, with Stecchi (whom the speaker in English, with his usual horrendous pronunciations, called as if it was an English name, instead of "Stekki") saving himself in the third. The 5.85 is cleared five, of whom three on them in the first. Among them the Frenchman Collet, for whom I am beginning to wonder if I did not speak too soon when I said that France would remain without medals. The doubts will increase when he also clears 5.90 at the first, along with Nielsen and Obina, while Duplantis will pass and Marschall will keep his attempts after his first fault. Four clear the 5.95 on the first round, all except Collet, who keeps his attempts after one miss. It is then 5 of them who try 6 metres: Duplantis clears them ionfirst with his usual disarming ease, Obiena on second, the others are out, with Nielsen and Marschall tying for bronze. Duplantis will also clear, somewhat less widely but still without any problems, 6.05 and 6.10, while Obiena will miss the first once and the second twice. Duplantis will then fail the record at 6.23. Five years ago I considered a race with three over 5.95 and four over 5.90 incredible, today it was four and five respectively.

There was also the women's shot put final, which, at least for the first three rounds, I followed very little: from my position I had difficulty realising the measures, even with binoculars, yet the field was the same as for the men's race. At the halfway stage Ealey was leading with 20.35 in the first throw, one entered the top eight with 19.26 and there were only 37 centimetres between third and eighth. In the fourth round Gong and Dogmo both threw 19.69, the Portuguese was currently third on countback, but in the next round the Chinese would overtake her. In the fifth round, Ealey stretched to 20.43 and Canada's Mitton, already second, also exceeded 20 metres (20.08). The last round is well followed because the only other competition left is Duplantis' record attempt, but nothing happens.

 There were two other finals: men's 800 and women's 5000. In the former, after a tactical first lap, Arop set off and held the lead until the end, ahead of Wanyoni, while Britain's Pattison took bronze to the delight of my neighbours. The 5000 was also tactical: when the pace quickened, with 800 metres to go, Battocletti was the first to pull away and closed over 30 seconds behind. Kipyegon wins ahead of Hassan and Chebet.

People leave the stadium slowly, it is one of the days when it is fullest. The motto of these World Championships (also on the T-shirt I bought) is 'Witness the wonder': I did not think I would witness so much wonder, especially Italian one.