Emmanuel Wanyonyi is a man of few words and a very soft voice, at least in English, and when asked about his life, he says it is a very long and very quick story and sums it up in four sentences: fifth of 12 siblings, no known father, very poor family in a remote Kenyan village; dropped out of school at age 10, street boy (street child), returns to school where he shows talent in running, Italian coach (Claudio Berardelli) who welcomes him in Kapsabet; junior world champion at 16, Olympic 800m champion at just 20 years old. He fell in the semi-finals of the trials Kenyans and was re-qualified for the final, where, in order not to stumble again, he decided to be a front runner Like the idol David Rudisha, he ran in the lead all the time and achieved a time of 1m 41.70s in the 1,800m altitude race in Nairobi. He said, great, this will be my style in Paris and I will avoid what happened to me at the World Championships in Budapest, where the big Marco Arop got in front of me and it was impossible to overtake him. In the final in Paris, Marco Arop was always behind, and he came in behind, a hundredth of a second behind, as was Moha Attaoui, 22, in a tight group, who, finishing fifth, confirmed himself as the great promise of Spanish athletics.
“The Spaniard is a very tough athlete. He has talent. He, like the others, helped me run very fast in the last 300 meters in the final,” said the Kenyan champion in an interview at the hospitality Adidas, his brand. Kenya had won the 800m since London 2012, it is the proof of his pride, and when Wanyonyi left for Paris, everyone, including Rudisha, told him: you cannot fail. Wanyonyi won the fastest final in history with a time of 1m 41.19s, the third best time in the world in history, just 28 hundredths of a second off Rudisha’s world record. “I think the world record is possible for me. I can beat it, maybe in the future. Not now. I am not ready for now, but it will come.”
Much less pressured by his homeland and by economic need, to which Wanyonyi was able to respond so well, and in his third 800m in four days, Attaoui ran for the second time in four weeks under 1m 42.50s: 1m 42.08s, four hundredths of a second off his Spanish record, a mark that places him eleventh in history, with the cream of the crop those who have transformed the 800m into the fashionable distance in world athletics. He will compete with them in some of the remaining Diamond Leagues (five, starting on August 22 in Lausanne until the final in Brussels, September 13 and 14), and in some of them he may even break the world record. A Spanish middle-distance runner at that level has not been seen since the times of González, Abascal or Cacho. In them, as on the lavender track of the ecstatic Stade de France, Wanyonyi will be there, with all the spotlights.
This is proof of his talent, of the privileged place occupied by the boy from Torrelavega, who trains in Saint Moritz with the OAC group, international elite, under the orders of the German from Leipzig Thomas Dreissigacker.
Beyond the four medals that equal the record of the magical Barcelona 92, in Paris the Soria native Marta Pérez, aged 31, achieved the reward for her work (a Spanish record of 1,500m at a level comparable to the world elite, 3m 57.75s), the Segovian Águeda Marqués, aged 25, in the same distance came to contest an impossible final, and Spanish athletics confirmed the legendary solidity and brilliance of its march, María Pérez and Álvaro Martín, the world star level of Jordan Díaz on Olympus, and the brilliant future of Attaoui, one who can speak on equal terms with the best, and also of Enrique Llopis, aged 24, who in his magnificent progression guided in Gandía by his creator, Toni Puig, came fourth in the final of the 110m hurdles, and left unhappy. He could have achieved a magnificent medal, had it not been for a bad start. Another step in a learning process that, like Attaoui’s or Marqués’s, may reach its peak in Los Angeles 28, very soon, and they will celebrate it on the beach.
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