Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi lived an idyll in Tokyo, a shared gold medal, and three years later they share the pain and sorrow of qualifying for the high jump. The Italian arrives with the fringes of a kidney colic and a fever of 38 that flattened him on his return trip to Italy after carrying his flag on the inaugural boat on the Seine, and he only jumps 2.24m (he goes to the final because everyone jumped very little), but even so, with his kidneys destroyed and all, he breaks down, he gets angry when his friend from Qatar gets a calf cramp when he starts to jump in an attempt. He runs towards him, helps him stretch, pushes the physiotherapists aside, pushes everyone aside. He recovers him and Barshim, a favourite like him for the Olympic spirit medal, if not for the high jump, can clear the bar at 2.27m. That happened at midday in the stadium.
When night falls, the peace between brothers turns into almost ferocity in the last 300m of the 3,000m steeplechase. At the exit of the penultimate curve, the irreverent American Kenneth Rooks, a nobody in the world of steeplechase (he arrived in Paris with a best time of 8m 15.08s), has no better idea than to make a change that seems like a bomb in front of the cream of the crop of world steeplechase, the masters of the event, the Moroccan Souffiane el Bakkali, the Ethiopian Lamecha Girma, the Kenyan Abraham Kibiwot… Surprised, as astonished as the stadium, which stops everything it was doing and does not lose sight of him, everyone gives him a few meters, but when they regain consciousness and see what can happen, they launch themselves at the American from Utah in a tumultuous pursuit, like those that are organized in the street shouting “Thief! Thief!” Or how they chased Buster Keaton in Seven Chances. What ferocity, what chaos. What a disaster, almost a tragedy, for Girma, the world record holder, aged 23 (7m 52.11s), who loses control and his sight and literally swallows the very solid fence at the entrance to the bend of the last estuary, and suffers a tremendous blow. His disaster gives more strength to El Bakkali, the Moroccan giant of almost two metres, who does not stop to attend to him, but persists in the attack and reaches the fugitive Rooks in the estuary, and beats him by a little, and still has to give his all in the last straight, because Rooks, incredible, does not give up, and hangs on by his side, hangs on. He comes second (8m 6.41s), reduces his best mark by nine seconds and wins the silver medal, after the Moroccan (8m 6.5s), who thus retains the Olympic title won in Tokyo three years ago. Girma left the stadium on a stretcher and with a neck brace and was taken to hospital, where, according to the Ethiopian team, he is conscious and talking. Spaniard Dani Arce was tenth (8m 13.80s).
In a 400m of a intensity long forgotten at the Games, the American Quincy Hall, in exuberant form at 26, caught and overtook the superb favourite, Britain’s Matthew Hudson Smith, in the final straight to win in an extraordinary time of 43.40s, the fourth best time in history. For the 29-year-old British veteran, who is having the season of his life in 2024, beating the European record with his 43.44s only earned him a silver medal in an electric final, in which third place, the young Zambian, 21, Muzala Samukonga (43.74s), fourth place, the stylish Jereem Richards, from Trinidad and Tobago (43.78s), and fifth place, the veteran from Granada Kirani James (43.87s) also went under 44s. Such density has never been seen before in the Olympic 400m, comparable only to the Rio 2016 final in which South African Wayde van Niekerk broke the world record (43.03s) ahead of James (43.76s) and American LaShawn Merritt (43.85s).
The women’s semi-final of the distance saw the sad rebirth of the Bahraini of Nigerian origin Salwa Naser, back after a doping sanction (misplacement), who achieved the best time of all the participants, 49.08s, and will make it difficult for the Dominican Marileidy Paulino (49.21s) to improve on the silver medal in Tokyo in the final.
Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo (19.96s) was the only athlete to break the 20s in the 200m semi-final and, by beating him in her heat, she announced to Noah Lyles (20.08s) the battle that awaits him to double his 100m gold.
And in the discus final, the Olympic record of the day was set. It was not the big favourite and world record holder (74.35m) Mykolas Alekna, but the surprising 25-year-old Jamaican Roje Stona, from the University of Arkansas, who on his fourth attempt landed the discus on the exact 70m line, beating the Lithuanian’s 69.97m on his second throw by three centimetres.
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