On Wednesday evening the Italian team made up of Matteo Melluzzo, Marcell Jacobs, Lorenzo Patta and Filippo Tortu won the gold medal in the 4×100 relay at the European Athletics Championships in Rome: they came first in the final with a time of 37 seconds and 82 hundredths, ahead of the teams from the Netherlands and Germany. Italy essentially dominated the race and was first from the first two stages, that of Melluzzo and above all that of Jacobs, who on Sunday had also won the 100 meters singles race and is the reigning Olympic champion.
On Tuesday, Italy had qualified for the final of the 4x100m thanks to the second place obtained in one of the two semi-finals, in which however it had fielded a different team from the one that went on to win the final: the team was in fact made up of Roberto Rigali, Matteo Melluzzo, Lorenzo Patta and Lorenzo Simonelli (who in recent days had won gold in the 110 meters hurdles). With this line-up, Italy had nevertheless run the 4x100m in a good time, 38.40 seconds, and had finished second behind the Netherlands (with 38.34).
In any case, on Wednesday the formation considered to be the starter, with the four strongest participants (the 4×100 is in fact divided into four “fractions”), recorded a much better time.
