Noblesse oblige, so we start from Marcell Jacobs that three years ago a Tokyo he transported the blue athletics from golden mediocrity to sidereal space with the golds in the 100 meters and the 4×100 and that yesterday the European scepter was regained. Marcell took off like this from the blocks, he stretched out with a bit of effort to hang up the blue giant Ali (second with 10″05, his progress is enormous) and the English Glave, third. But his joy for his 10″02 is tainted by a soreness in his left calf that has faded his smile and left him with a limp.
«I believe and hope it is a contracture – he reassures, very dry – due to the two close races. I’m happy but I know I still have a lot of work to do” explains Marcell. At the moment the fluidity of Tokyo is far away but the Brescia native’s palmarès is enriched by a second European title after that of Munich.
Jacobs will not be offended, however, if the scepter of king of the Roman night last night was taken by another second generation Italian (mother is Tanzanian), the 22 year old Roman Lorenzo Simonelli. Crouched in lane 4 in a 110 hurdles race that only started racing seriously a few months ago, putting aside his pure speed, Lorenzo pulverized his opponents and his fresh Italian record (13″21) with a 13”05 which takes it to a global dimension.
Perfect in shooting, more than perfect in rhythm, Simonelli (lap of honor with straw hat and pirate flag) perfectly summarizes the recipe that makes Italian athletics so great: «When I saw Jacobs in Tokyo – explains the Roman – I said to myself: I too want to be like this, I too like Marcell, I too want to amaze and amaze myself».
And what about another very young man, that one Mattia Furlani who at 19 years old with a Tribuna Tevere crowded with people from Rieti like him, had the courage to bring the under 20 world record to 8 meters and 38 on the first jump and then, always a hair too far ahead in serving (three nulls), too crooked and too twisted on the axis, to try to undermine it anyway the divine Greek Olympian Tentoglou who with a double 8m 65m and other stellar leaps achieved the best world series since the days of Lewis and Powell. Aware of having to “mature biologically, technically and physically” (in his words), Mattia will go to Paris in 50 days with a world silver indoor and a European one already in the bag.
Leonardo Fabbri’s is a gold apart: after a limp first throw, the Tuscan giant decided to mentally draw a personal platform where he threw almost a meter and a half beyond his opponents who were first stunned and then knocked out by shooting regularly over 22 metres. «After a moment of uncertainty due to terrifying throws in the warm-up – explained Leo – I told myself that if I want to attack the Americans in Paris I can’t throw like that. AND I began to go long, very long, almost isolating myself from the others. At that point I felt light, strong, powerful.”
Statistics say that the 42 minutes in which yesterday Italy won 3 golds and 6 medals, with bronze from the race walk, in a single night they are unprecedented in the history of our athletics.
