Night falls on Budapest as two athletes from the Netherlands, bright as the sun in their orange jerseys, zoom unstoppably towards a gold medal. As if condemned by a curse from the Hungarian sky, neither of them reaches their destination. The two fall when her gaze caresses the last line. Sifan Hassan and Femke Bol, both so impressive, collapse in two endings that would be unusual if they hadn’t been, incredibly, repeated.
The sun has long since set when Dutchman Sifan Hassan changes the pace, as expected, with 250 meters left in the 10,000m event. The test, very slow, has been controlled at all times by the Ethiopian athletes, who, distrustful, since they have already suffered the painful experience in the Tokyo Games, look behind them waiting for the moment when the athlete in orange attacks them . Ready for her attack are the lightning-fast Gudaf Tsegay and the magnificent Letensenbet Gidey, who after a moment’s indecision pursue her. Tsegay catches up with her coming out of the last corner and the two of them, Hassan, barely hours after having run a series of 1,500m in which he has tested his sprint, and Tsegay throw themselves into a terrible side-by-side, very close. Hassan imperceptibly opens to her right and elbows Tsegay once, twice, three times, she is so close. Then, as if she had already reached her limit, and the finish line is 20 meters away, Hassan, exhausted, collapses, stays on the ground, allows herself to be passed, and only when almost everyone has passed, does she get up and even smile. . The champion a year ago in Eugene, Gidey, who finished second, turns around, caresses her, kisses her, is horrified by the bloody elbow of the girl Hassan, who was looking for three gold medals in Budapest (1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m ).
Just a quarter of an hour earlier, shortly after Portland, Oregon’s Ryan Crouser demanded from the shot put circle that the crowd adored him and applauded his sixth shot with rhythm, Femke Bol, the marvelous 400m hurdler , her endless legs, her light stride, the baton of the relay in her hand, overwhelmed by the American Alexis Holmes in the last meters of the mixed relay, she collapses 10 meters from the line, her hand hits the rubber and drops the baton. The Netherlands, the great favourite, is disqualified from the 4x400m mixed relay, her pride. The United States quartet (Justin Robinson, Rosey Effiong, Matthew Boling and Homes) breaks the world record that the Netherlands should have broken (3m 8.82s) and achieves the second gold of the night for the United States, after the marvel of Crouser, his half step to the left before turning to improve his momentum, initial speed, momentum, and launch the 7,260kg ball up to 23.51m, just two inches short of his world record. The first athlete to pass 23 meters in a World Cup.
Earlier, a day of maneuvers in the stadium at the setting sun, not a cloud over the Danube, when the three Spaniards in the 1,500m, the stars Adel Mechaal, Mario García and Mo Katir, in order of performance, qualify for the semifinals (Sunday, 5:35 p.m.) with small exhibitions included, a matter of marking territory after the intangible Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Mechaal, who runs in the series of the favorite Norwegian, does so behind his back, with time to analyze his imperceptible and infinite changes and also to admire, perhaps, the audacity of the I demoted of its parietals that sharpen its head, so high. They run very fast to be the first of the three 1,500m that await them, a tribute to the speed of the Mondo rubber, a track like the one in Tokyo, says Mechaal. Ingebrigtsen wins with 3m 33.94s and the Spaniard controls and passes third, relaxed despite the urgency with which, behind him, the Portuguese Isaac Nader wants to pass him and his little goatee grown in the Valonsadero forest, in Soria, under the eye critical of his coach, and that of Fermín Cacho 30 years ago, Enrique Pascual Oliva. The slowest series (3m 46.77s) was won, calmly, by Mario García Romo, a lizard tail in the last 50 meters, when he made a hole between the turtles in the style, he wants to remember, of Verstappen on a grid of exit. Mo Katir runs as if it were the final and gold awaited him at the end of the straight, and he does it that way, he says, because he prefers to arrive like this, “tight” and free than risking a sprint with 10 plus one of the six places that gave the move to the semifinal.
In the 100m series, the exuberant Noah Lyles, manicured manicured nails like his hair, and his happy Goku gesture throwing a ball, and the so serious Fred Kerley and his story of life as a child without parents in tough neighborhoods from San Antonio, Texas, camel corners, crack, opioids, gunshots. A clash of lives and running styles, and the same ambition. Lyles and his slowness in the first ten metres, his endless progression, his finish at full throttle (9.95s) in his series rushed by the Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala (9.97s), who tomorrow (19.10) can break the race and become the first African 100m world champion; Kerley (9.99s), pure control, almost introspection, in his world behind his badass and golden sunglasses, the seriousness of his face that seems carved in marble, from which he awakens when the Jamaican boy Oblique Seville (9.86s) it happens to him in the last 40 meters, an exhalation.
Seville, 22, is Usain Bolt’s island hope to regain mastery of speed, but Jamaica’s true gem, the jaw-dropping Caribbean athlete, is not a sprinter, but a jumper. wild and relaxed triple, a contradiction that is resolved in a carefree smile, a sway of the hips at the end of the jump, a short run, and three explosions, three jumps in the triple, the second one still short, that take him to 17.70 meters who does not want the thing. An 18-year-old natural athlete growing up in US college track and field.
Even earlier, at two in the afternoon, almost three, already sunny after the storm, the long jumpers matured by Iván Pedroso in Guadalajara, Fátima Diame (6.61m) and Tessy Ebosele (6.65 in her first experience in a Absolute World Cup), they qualify for the final, the first time with two Spaniards at the top (16.55), minutes after Dani Arce qualified for the final (Tuesday, 21.42) of the 3,000m obstacles, and almost simultaneously with the pass from Marta Pérez and Esther Guerrero to the 1,500m semifinals (Sunday, 5:05 p.m.).
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