It’s a blue night that took place at the Olympic stadium in Rome. With 10″02 Marcell Jacobs gets the gold medal in the 100 meters at the European Athletics Championships. A few thousandths of a second behind him, with 10″05, is Chituru Ali, an athlete from Lombardy, who wins silver. The Italian double in the 100 meters gave emotions to an audience that was already in adrenaline. A few minutes earlier, in fact, Leonardo Fabbri had also won gold in the shot put and Lorenzo Simonelli in the 110 show jumping, a new Italian record. The silver instead was won by Mattia Furlani, with 8.38 meters in the long jump, an Under20 world record.
Jacobs is the first Italian to maintain the top step of the podium at the European Championships twice in a row. The athlete, in fact, had arrived with the aim of keeping the title of European champion already won in 2022.
«I wanted to win at home, in front of my fans and in the city where I built my medals. I wanted to give something back to him and I hope I managed to make a few people happy”, said the champion immediately after the race. He succeeded. The public, who arrived at the stadium for him in the morning, supported him with chants and tricolor flags. When the lights at the Olimpico go out at 10.53pm, an atmosphere that feels like magic is created in the stands. Silence falls. The headlights come back on on the starting blocks, focused on the eight finalists in the race. At the name of Marcell comes the applause of encouragement, with the warmth of the Roman fans who chant: «Come on Jacobs! You are our champion!”. In a stadium that awaits the opening shot to dream, a false start arrives, reliving for a few moments what happened at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. There is a warning for Alì but no disqualification. It is the second shot, this time valid, which leads the two blues to triumph in an arena that explodes with joy.
«The word defeat is never in our heads. Close to 80 meters I started to feel cramps in my calf and I wasn’t able to push to the end as I would have liked, but I’m very happy with the result” – said the Italian-Texan athlete, underlining how in these races what matters let it be the medals and not the time. «There will always be someone who will come to take away your lead in the seconds. What you wear around your neck remains yours forever.” Alì also joined in his words of satisfaction: «I consider my second place a good achievement even though obviously I wanted to win. Having Marcell by your side is a formidable incentive. Now my head is in Paris to grow further.”
The objective of both remains the Olympics scheduled from 26 July to 11 August in the French capital. Jacobs himself has repeatedly reiterated how he is trying to maintain his physical best before the start: «There I will have to reach my maximum. With the new coach we are following a targeted path that has turned mine upside down comfort zones, but it was necessary to obtain these results.” The athlete thus brings home two of the three challenges he had set himself. Among these was staying healthy and winning the European Championship again: “We’re working on winning the five hoops,” said the athlete between a smile and a gesture of superstition.
To his fellow athletes who, like him, reached the highest steps yesterday, Marcell wanted to dedicate a message: «The boys have worked so hard and they deserve these successes. I was focused on my race but at the same time I didn’t want to miss Mattia’s jumps or Leonardo’s throws. Their energy gave me even more strength to obtain this gold.”
Share the article
