Paris 2024, who is Mattia Furlani: the Italian Son of the Wind, bronze in the footsteps of Carl Lewis

Paris 2024, Mattia Furlani bronze at the Olympics, youngest medalist in the last 100 years

Mattia Furlani accomplished a dream feat, winning a bronze medal in Paris 2024 in the men’s long jump, forty years after Giovanni Evangelisti won a bronze medal at the Olympics (Los Angeles 1984). His is the youngest medal in Italian athletics in the last 100 years: in 1920 two golds by Ugo Frigerio and in 1912 the bronze by the other race walker Fernando Altimani, both at eighteen years of age.

Paris 2024, who is Mattia Furlani: the Italian Son of the Wind, bronze in the footsteps of Carl Lewis

The baby prodigy born in Marino – on February 7, 2005 – is a boy of crystalline talent. A true predestined one. In the footsteps of the greats, of history. He who in May 2023 managed to shake the world by doing better than Carl Lewis: at the meeting in Savona, he jumped an incredible 8.44 in the long jump, thwarted only by a wind that was just above the norm by 2 decimal points (+2.2). A feat that was not approved, it would have been the longest jump in history for a Junior, even better than Carl Lewis at that age (8.35).

The podium at the Paris 2024 Olympics for Mattia Furlani – a member of the Fiamme Oro Padova Group – comes after the title of vice-world indoor champion in Glasgow 2024 and vice-European champion in Rome 2024 with a height of 8.38 m (his personal best and world record under 20) behind Tentoglou who became Olympic champion in Paris 2024 (with 8.48 while the silver went to Jamaican Wayne Pinnock with 8.36). The Italian talent also became European champion under 20 in Jerusalem 2023. Mattia, son of art (and also passionate about basketball which he played from a very young age), his is a family of great sportsmen: son of Marcello Furlani (high jumper of 2.27 m in 1985) and Khaty Seck (Italian sprinter of Senegalese origins) and brother of Erika, an international high jumper.

Paris 2024: Furlani, ‘Incredible bronze, the greatest emotion of my life’

I’m tired of crying, otherwise it seems like I’m a ‘crybaby’…. It was incredible, I believed in it until the end, this was the greatest emotion I’ve had in my life. Thanks to everyone who supported my journey. This medal is as much theirs as it is mine”. This is what the Italian Mattia Furlani said to Rai after winning the bronze in the long jump at the 2024 Paris Games.