The night of the atomic Femke Bol and Karsten Warholm, the untouchables of the 400m hurdles, was the same night of the bitter fourth places of Daniel Arce, in the 3,000m obstacles and the hurdler Sara Gallego, in the 400, who with so many hopes came. For one, for the hurdler from Cardeña said, in the alfoz de Burgos, who likes his town so much, and also likes his partner, the long jumper Fátima Diame, the European final a few weeks after his first world final ( ninth in Eugene) meant a second chance after sixth place in the 2018 Europeans, those with silver in the Fernando Carro test, to consecrate himself, now that he has already turned 30.
The test went like silk, at a pace that pleased him (2m 53s in 1,000, 5m 41s in 2,000), maintained by the Italian twins Osama and Ala Zoghlami, cheerfully helped to immolate themselves by the third azzurro of the night, Ahmed Abdelwahed.
It was about taking advantage of the cadence generated by the voluntary waste of the favorite Italians to attack hard on the last lap and take the victory. As simple as that, as complicated, impossible, for the gigantic, over 1.90m, and slender Arce, as required by his surname, who, when he was already sharpening the knife, tripped on the fence after leaving the estuary, and suddenly again in which he anticipated the ringing of the bell. “There I lost one, two meters, just when the final stampede was launched. The twins accelerated as much as they could until they couldn’t take it anymore and the Finn Topi Raitanen took advantage of it, who surpassed them with the maneuver that Arce thought, who ended up desperately arming himself like one who tries to swim across a river and believes that he will never reach the other shore, lamented: “There were two trips, perhaps because of nerves, because of the excitement of having the fight for the medals so close, that came to me at the worst time, because the two meters that you lose when everyone attacks are impossible to come back”. Raitanen won (8m 21.80s), the silver went to Abdelwahed and the bronze to Osama. After Arce (8m25s) came, sixth, the veteran from Jaén Sebas Martos (6th, 8m 26.68s), and the third Spaniard, Víctor Ruiz was 13th (8m 37.24s).
“The desire, the desire after the eighth hurdle, the desire in the final stretch, will be the one that decides the medals, Sara”, says Àlex Codina, her coach, to Sara Gallego, the splendid hurdler from Barcelona who didn’t even care It lacks rhythm, much less desire. “If you arrive in 54s you can get it.” All the premises were covered by the athlete who at the age of 21 has resurrected the specialty in Spain, leaving the national record at 54.34s, in already important territories and reaching a European final with the possibility of winning a medal, with faith in it . However, her start was too slow. She was sixth at 100 meters and seventh, penultimate, at 200m, flanked, seventh and fifth lanes, to the right and left, by the Ukrainians Viktoriya Tkachuk and Anna Ryzhykova, and all far from the phenomenal Dutch Femke Bol on her way to her second gold of Munich after the 400m dash, and he achieves it with an extraordinary 52.67s, a championship record.
From the curve, which she handles so well, Gallego comes out sixth, and on the straight, the athlete shows her desire splendidly but too late. With her magnificent hurdle-passing technique, her greater strength, the power with which she counteracts her short stature for the specialty, the 1.68m Barcelona native overtakes the Norwegian Iuel and the British Krafzik, and crushes Ryzhykova, the third, to which it approaches and approaches, to which it does not reach by 11 hundredths. She finishes fourth, and, just barely, in the territory of the 54s (54.97s). “We have to keep working on technique and rhythm. Sara will never be a 49s sprinter, but she can go down to 53s in hurdles if we manage to lower 16 to 15 steps between the first hurdles”, says Codina. “And Sara has the capacity to achieve it. She can handle herself with the maturity of a 30-year-old woman, but she retains the curiosity, the desire to learn, of a cadet. She is the ideal mix.” And the confirmation in the elite of an athlete who stands out in Europe and the world since youth, great news for Spanish athletics.
A quarter of an hour later, another atomic, the Norwegian Karsten Warholm, half injured all year hangover from his great world record (45.94s) at the Tokyo Games, revives splendidly in the men’s final, which he dominates from the second fence, which devastates later. He wins his second European gold with 47.12s, also a championship record, and leaves Frenchman Wilfried Happio (48.56s) in silver, more than a second and several meters behind, who had finished fourth in the World Cup after the victory of the Brazilian Alison Santos and Norwegian Pain, seventh. The bronze went to the Turkish Yasmani Copello (48.78s).
With the simplicity of geniuses, Mariano García runs the 800m, the most complicated distance to interpret.
He, the athlete who lives happily in his town, Cuevas de Reyllo, spending the afternoon looking at magazines in his hypobaric chamber, does not speculate, acts and confuses and, in a splendid semi-final on a cool and breezy Friday, pays his personal tribute to David Wottle on his track, on the stage where the great American, too, left the world open-mouthed 50 years ago. And there is not a day since then that somewhere in the world, every day at least one person does not enjoy the final of the Munich Games on video or YouTube, the athlete in the cap apparently indifferent to all the noise of the fight, calm in the queue, almost off the hook, that in the last 200m always maintaining the same rhythm, to all and win.
In his own way, and without a cap but with the gesture of his motorcycle always running, Mariano García, so master of everything that happens in the four laps of the covered track, and its curves, that he is already world champion in the specialty, does his David Wottle to celebrate its splendor on the grand surface. He is the first one coming out of the 300m curve, 500m from the end and from there, from his privileged position, close to the rope, he begins to administer what he calls the bullets of his chargers, the small progressive changes, and at all speed, which disconcerts, confuses and terrifies the best athletes in the world, Jake Wightman himself, for example, the only known executioner of Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who arrives in Munich haloed with his world gold in the 1,500m and a brand that scares in the 1,000. Wightman, and also the Frenchman Gabriel Tual, with a tremendous plant, are forced to stay in the mud of the fight for position, to look for air going out to lane three, to spend more, to run uncomfortable.
And, in front, leading everyone, García manages his bullets, manages them with the care of stingy people, always keeping one. After passing the 400m in 53.44s, he wins in 1m 46.53s, completing two 400m in a row in practically the same time, like Wottle, of course, who won gold in 1972 in 1m 45.9, two 400s at 53s, of course. He qualifies for the final on Sunday, and so does Wightman, the French Robert, the Swedish Kramer or the Irish English, but not Adrián Ben, who did not find his place at any time, nor the speed that he has worked so hard for, in the first semifinal , run in 1m 48s, so slow, and won by the Swedish Andreas Kramer. He was eliminated the finalist of Doha 19 and Tokyo 21 and he wept bitterly, and regretted not having dared to get ahead and launch the race at 1m 46s, the fetish distance, the tactic that he had discussed with his coach, Arturo Martín.
In the final of the 200m, won by the British Zharnel Hughes (20.07s) the Spaniard Pol Retamal (20.63s) was sixth
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