World Athletics Championships in Tokyo - Day 7 (19-09-2025)

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Another day when it's best to start from the end. I have just witnessed one of the most unexpected medals in the history of Italian athletics, naturally if we are talking about athletes and not events. On the eve of a championship, I always identify three levels of possible medals: “realistic hopes”, “outsiders” and “possible miracles”. I didn't even consider this one a possible miracle, unlike the medal in the marathon. 

On the scoreboard, the triple jump event had been billed as a duel between Pichardo and Diaz. I’m in a great spot to watch it: first deck, ninth row, exactly in line with the take-off mark. When the athletes enter the field, following the jumping order, so led by Pichardo and Diaz, I spot another blue shirt and only then remember that Diaz isn’t the only Italian competing. Pichardo starts, and I immediately realise that my viewpoint isn’t ideal for judging the marks: looking at the metric bar, you tend to overestimate by nearly a metre. The Portuguese’s jump looks close to 18 metres, but it’s “only” 17.07. Diaz follows, but doesn’t even take off. The first round ends with Triki leading at 17.25, followed by Martinez with 17.16, and Dallavalle fourth on 17.00. I miss Pichardo’s second jump because I was watching an 800m semi-final, but from the crowd’s reaction (which is often exaggerated, precisely because many have a perspective that leads them to overestimate the marks), it’s clearly a very good one: 17.55. Diaz takes off a long way before the board (37 cm) and doesn’t finish the jump: 16.35. Immediately afterwards, Scott slots in with 17.19 and, above all, Martinez stretches out to 17.49. The third round starts with a jump from Pichardo that looks even better than the previous one, but it’s the same. Diaz finally completes a jump; it’s clear it’s not exceptional (and indeed he looks puzzled), but at least it allows him to continue: 17.19, fourth for now. I only catch sight of Dallavalle’s landing: it seems good, but I didn’t think it was that good: 17.24. The 17.08 in qualifying already seemed exceptional to me, after a missed season.

The third round closes with 4 athletes within just 6 centimetres, from Triki’s third place at 17.25 to Diaz’s sixth at 17.19. Dallavalle is 1 cm off the podium, but I think he’s already achieved so much and I still believe Diaz is more likely to win a medal. In the fourth round, nobody improves: Diaz does another jump that leaves him very disappointed, at 16.93, Pichardo makes 17.36. However, when Diaz stops on his fifth jump, touching his leg, I begin to think that if we want a medal, we have to pin our hopes on Dallavalle. And his fifth jump really gives hope: beautiful, with a very high "jump", I think he might have improved, but it’s 17.15.

And so we reach the final jump. Diaz completes his attempt, but it’s clear straight away that he’s not in the race: 16.81. After Scott’s foul, it’s Dallavalle’s turn: you can see immediately that it’s clearly better than his previous one, so probably medal-worthy, but he signals for calm. He even takes the lead: 17.64! But Pichardo still has a jump left; Dallavalle doesn’t look, but when he lands both know he’s overtaken him, in fact it’s 17.91. Pichardo gestures dramatically, Dallavalle goes to congratulate him, then both climb over the barriers and embrace their coaches and staff. That makes 6 medals, equalling the record, and 13 top-eight finishes, and it’s not over yet.

In the morning, I’d taken a stroll and met the Giorgi-Giupponi couple. The session was starting at 17:33 and this time I really had to be on time because Gerevini was in the first heat of the heptathlon 100m hurdles and after that there were no other events until 18:20. I see loads of people coming down from the tube and wonder if they’re all really heading to the stadium. They are: there’s a big crowd at the entrance, more than on previous days. I’m not surprised by the crowd itself: it’s the weekend and there’s the local idol Kitaguchi, I’m surprised that so many arrive just for the heptathlon 100m hurdles—if Gerevini hadn’t been competing, I might have skipped them myself. When I enter, anyway, there are still plenty of empty seats in my section, it’s fuller towards the bends, but by 19:30 (when Kitaguchi enters the competition) it will be almost full. Behind me I spot British and Irish fans, a few rows ahead there are some Belgians, in the next section there’s a group of Jamaicans and some members of the Italian delegation. Around the place, you can also see American, Finnish and Algerian flags. As I said, in the front rows of my block are the coaches for the triple jumpers.

In the first heat of the 100m hurdles, almost all arrive in a group and it’s hard to work out where Gerevini placed: she’s fourth, ahead of Thiam, and will be 12th overall. After the heptathlon hurdles comes an awards ceremony: I try to work out where it’s taking place, since I only see it on the screen, not live, then I realise it’s not in the stadium, it’s indoors. Four ceremonies are held, and you hear some unusual anthems like Trinidad & Tobago and Botswana. In the meantime, I go to the merchandise shop and am sorely disappointed: the T-shirts with the World Championships logo are only for sale online, there are some in collaboration with a manga my son tells me is “Attack on Titan”, but they’re sold out.

The competitions continue with the heptathlon high jump, where at first it’s hard to tell the two groups apart as they’ve had the bright idea of putting one scoreboard in front of the other group’s runway. Gerevini is in group B, the weaker one: she just scrapes through at 1.68, with the bar wobbling on the third attempt, then clears 1.71 and 1.74 confidently, but then stops. Hall and Thiam reach 1.89, Johnson-Thompson and two others clear 1.86. Then comes the key event for the Japanese: the women’s javelin qualification. Things go badly from the start for Kitanuchi, who throws 60.31 in the first round and improves by 7 cm in the second, but finishes seventh in her group, overtaken even by a compatriot. After the first round of the second group, she’s already 11th, and after the second round, she’s already out.

The “single” track races begin with the men’s 5000m heats. In the second, it’s only around the fourth kilometre that I notice Ingebritsen is competing, and he’ll just about qualify. A member of the refugee team led at the start, who will be dropped in the end, but not by much. Two out of three Kenyans are out, as are both Ugandans, Almgren and the Spanish athlete of Burundian origin (don’t make me write his name), with Girma and Laros withdrawing. Next are the women’s 800m semi-finals. Coiro is in the first: she runs a great race, in the final stretch she even seems able to challenge the top two, but finishes third and the time, 1:59.19, leaves little hope of advancing. In fact, in the second race, eight out of nine will go under 1:58. Before the triple jump, another field event begins, the heptathlon shot put, which is met with general indifference; the announcer mentions it at the start and then never again. Hall achieves a personal best with 15.80 and extends her lead in the overall standings, Gerevini gets close to her PB with 12.98 and is 17th.

The track finals begin. The men’s 400m hurdles is introduced as being all about Warholm, with no mention of rivals. But in the second bend, from the crossing of the hurdles, Benjamin seems slightly ahead, and as they enter the home straight he’s clearly in front. Warholm fades, overtaken by Dos Santos, Samba, and the Nigerian Nathaniel. The women’s race is billed as “Bol against the clock”. As expected, the Dutch athlete is well ahead from the start, followed by the Americans Jones and Cockrill, but in the final stretch the Slovakian Zapletalova surprisingly moves up to third.

It wraps up with three 200m races: first the heptathlon, then the two finals. In the first heptathlon heat, it looks like Gerevini has won, but she’s actually third, 0.04 seconds behind the winner. She’ll finish 10th overall and remains 17th in the standings. Hall, second, extends her lead again. In the men’s final, Levell enters the home straight in front, but is then overtaken by Lyles and Bednarek and, in the final stretch, Tebogo recovers from the inside, and I think he’s finished third if not second. But the podium is Lyles-Bednarek-Levell, Tebogo fourth. The winner’s time is a “normal” 19.52, but what’s striking are the times of those placed: 19.65 for fourth, 19.78 for fifth. The women’s final (with 9 athletes, I don’t know why) starts with an obvious false start, making the disqualification unavoidable. As they enter the home straight, Jefferson is already ahead of Jackson, but then the Jamaican fades, while Hunt comes from the inside lane and snatches second place. So, just like us, the British were expecting a medal from one athlete and it came from another.

On the metro I get chatting with a few fans: there’s a group of ladies in Jamaican colours who are actually British of Jamaican origin, two British girls who congratulate me on the Italian successes and regret not having won a gold yet, and a German who says something I never thought I’d hear five years ago, if not ironically: “Italy has so many strong athletes, more than Germany.”