Rome Sprint Festival (18-05-2024)

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This time I get to the area quite easily (although I risk a head-on collision: I thought I was right, then found out I was wrong) and I also find a parking quite close, The problem now is to find the entrance: I have never been to an event at the Stadio dei Marmi with an entrance fee, I don't know how many years there hasn't been one (I had been there to take part in an event with my daughter, whichended up in a disaster). They tell me to go ‘to the obelisk’, meaning the gates of the Olympic Stadium. There's a couple before me, who wonders if that's really the entrance since immediately after the gate there's a row of rubbish bins, but it is.

 The actual entrance, with ticket check, is besides the Olympic Syadium. Next to it is the bib collection desk: I see a group of athletes enter, including Ali. You can't bring water bottles or, canteens, as if we were football fans (or tennis fans, given the canteen thrown to Djokovic) and say that it's hot (although not as hot as Tuesday) and, from what I saw, no one sells drinks inside the stadium: towards the end I will feel thirsty. At the entrance there is an ‘official point’ of Jacobs, which I don't know what it distributes, and given the queue, I don't investigate. The entrance is about at the 200 metres line(and it takes me a while to figure it out, since there is a finish line there too): so I have to make a half-lap to get to the finish area, where my place should be. I say "should" because nobody actually checks that one sits in one's seat (the seats are not numbered, but there were different areas with different prices): I had the ticket of the highest category (I don't want to say ‘the most expensive’ because prices were still affordable, much less than the cheapest tickets at the Olympics), but I could have taken the cheapest one and sat in the same seat. On the way I met Galvan with his baby daughter Rachele.

The grandstand at the last 50 metres is almost completely full, while the rest of the stadium is almost empty. I still find a seat in the second row. I have never seen a high-level meeting so close up, and besides, it would be almost impossible (at least for track events) since in few fields is the track so close to the grandstands, there are not even the platforms for horizontal jumps. It's 4.50 p.m.: I thought I remembered that there were still the U16 80 metres, but they did them earlier: they start at 5.10 p.m. with the girls' 4X100. Meanwhile there is Ludo, the mascot of the European Championships, dancing on the straight and taking photos with the children. The athletes, including Jacobs and Tortu, also warm up on the straight and greet the public. Before they start, they play the national anthem and recommend singing it: considering the number of spectators, it can be heard quite loudly.

We start, as I said, with the women's 4X100, with the U20 and U18 national teams and three teams from local clubs. The attraction is Valensin in the U18 team: she competes in the second leg and is impressive, you can immediately see that she is of another category. She passes the baton ahedof the U20 team and her team will keep the leadf until the end, closing in 44.99, which I suppose is an Italian record, but they will wait a while before confirming it. Then there is the men's race, again with the two national boys' teams and this time four local teams. Here the U20 team clearly wins with a good 39.76, but I find out later that they have been disqualified and that behind them the U18 team has set the Italian record with 40.90: I will have to read it, no one will announce the result.

I thought what a track-only meeting would be like: indeed there is a lot of downtime, which is filled with music and dancing by the mascot. At one point the speaker sets up a wave and talks about the ‘Tiber grandstand’ and it takes me a while that he means the one on the final straight, since we are actually perpendicular to the Tiber. We come to the first individual race, women's 200, with Dosso and, again,.Valensin  As expected, Dosso starts very strong, then slows down, but keeps first place, while Valensin and Mangione fight for second. Seeing Dosso's time (23.12, later corrected to 23.10) and how close Valensin was, it was clear that she had set the Italian U18 record. Instead it was even closer than it looked from my position: 23.15, which also breaks the U20 record. There is also Mangione's 23.16, which is excellent especially for a 400 metres specialist, but no one notices it: I feel sorry for her. The third Italian makes 23.16, without even all the best being present: 4-5 years ago it would have seemed incredible, today it goes unnoticed.

Then there is the men's race, where there should be a huge gap between Tortu and the others, instead two remain close to him, so one wonders whether Tortu is doing badly or the others very well. At the finish it turns out that the answer is the former: 20.72. The announcer calls for applause for Tortu, but you can see that he just wants to disappear. The others were not so close either, the second doing 20.97. Then came the 400 metres, the only races where the favourites were not Italian, and in fact the Dutchwoman De Witte won in the women's race and the American Stewart in the men's one, with Aceti first Italian in 46.05. Before the climax came the women's 100 metres, where De Masi improves again and wins in 11.26.

This brings us to the men's 100: everyone on their feet. Of all the races I took photos of the final straight, more or less successful, but not this time, according to the motto ‘you either live or shoot’. Ali gets off to a better start, but Jacobs catches him up and wins, although not by much. The time is 10.07, so he improves, but the  Italian ladereof the year remains Ali. I hear shouts of enthusiasm for ‘Matteo’ with a strong Sicilian accent, so I realise both that, in addition to Ali, Melluzzo had also finished close to Jacobs (and in fact he does 10.13), and that Melluzzo's family is next to me. His mum says that he lives in Syracuse and trains in Catania. Everyone compliments her, including me.

On the way out I meet Mangione: I congratulate her and tell her what I wrote earlier about the third Italian at 23.16. She answers me that by now for a 200 specialist it would be an ordinary time, but she is satisfied in a 400 perspective.

 

The European Championships are 21 days away, and I really can't wait