Spain, you have a speed face, a waiter would say; Speed, you have a woman’s name, the bad poet would say, at least to the torrid seven in the afternoon of the last Sunday of June in Vallehermoso, but the cursilería surely cares for a pepper that jumps with boats as a happy girl when it ends the 200m that has run like an exhalation on Eight Street, an atomic curve, an explosive ending. Boom. 22,19s. A worldwide brand. The eighth of the year in a list in which, except for the Olympic champion that commands her ,. The best European brand of the year. The best brand ever achieved by a Spanish athlete. A record that waited 35 years to be erased, since the shocking Sandra Myers, delicate pianist, steel sprinter, set it at 22,38s.
It is hit by a 24 -year -old Catalan who matures quickly and safely in the wise hands of the coach and surfs on the crest of the wave that Spanish sprinters have raised this spring of all the firstfruits. Around Besué, a medical student in Barcelona, and Paula Sevilla, two magnets, a generation grows, a group that materializes in the relays, and there is feeding their self -esteem and ambition. “I didn’t even go through my head. I was going through my head of 22.54, winning the highest points for Spain, but I never imagined seeing a one in the second number of my brand. I am still speechless,” he says, still sweating, still breathless, still fresh the memory of his curve in the 4×100 relay that beat the national record (42,11s) the night before. “This gives me a track of what I am able to do. I was looking at the track and he said, hosts, that you are able to everything, this is your dream, your place is here. I saw the score and I thought, ‘I am a real athlete’. Last year I did not do very well, but it has made me grow personally to be already in this brand.”
The defeated rivals hug her with affection and the fans jelly and she thanks her almost Afonics voice. “The forces have come from the stands,” says Besué, whose victory, the second Spanish after the 800m of Attaaui on Friday, and its 16 points, sound a trigger for the team’s comeback towards the European summit, but it is a misleading sound.
It is not a straight orbit that draws Spain but the curved route of a roller coaster, few tall, many plains and quite low, a metaphor that the champions usually use, which sometimes forget that all the Russian mountains end in vertiginous descent towards the ground.
The other competitors of the National Team. Spain part sixth before the mixed relay 4×400, and, despite its good career-the Manchego-Madrileño Quartet Manuel Guijarro, of Villarrobledo; Blanca Hervás, from Majadahonda; Julio Arenas, from Parla, and Paula Sevilla, of La Solana beats the national record, 3m 10,48s, in a race that finished quarters thanks to the comeback of Blanca Hervás and Paula Sevilla -, sixth ends, 19 points of the third place (Germany), which he wanted. Italy won again, as two years ago, and Poland repeated as a second. The speed of women does not save the team.
I kissed is already athlete, and good, and it is one more in Madrid with great champions that leave the mark of his talent. Leonardo Fabbri, the Italian Apollo who has redefined the morphotype of the peso, 2.00 meters slender, 120 kilos, neither belly nor fat, plays in the tartan with the ball (7,260 kilos) as if it were a soccer ball, then grabs it, plant the compass of his legs – it is the only Circle – and rotates, and rotates, as driven by Franco Battiato, and flies the steel sphere until beyond the 21 -meter line (21.68m). As if nothing. In the stands, the Spanish coach Jorge Gras, coach of the discóbolo Diego Casas, learns sitting next to Paolo Dal Soglio, the coach of Fabbri, and does not lose a ripio. From the technicians the revolution of the launches, the traditional lunar of Spanish athletics can come. Ona Bonet Salta 1.88m, its best brand, and is eighth, next to the Alada Yaroslava Mahuchikh, which rises to two meters, and from it and her coach Tatiana Stepanova, with which she has trained, they continue to learn her and her coach, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. And Fatima Diame (eighth, 6.68m) combat in the moat with his doubts. That defeat it, far from the great Malaika Mihambo (6.84m) and Larissa Iapichino May (6.92m).
Adrián Ben is fourth (3m 40,31s) in a 1,500m tactical and slow race for the heat, won by the Portuguese Isaac Nader with 3m 39.08s. Marta Serrano does not need references on the track. She draws her path in the 3,000m obstacles, and fights for victory to the last fence. It falls badly. It is not driven for the final sprint. It ends fourth (9m 50.08s), and alive, while almost all competitors collapse in the soil that abrasa, on the edge of fainting and dehydration in the heat that overwhelms, and Christophe Ramírez, the doctor of the championships, and their entire team multiply, immediately sheltering their necks with frosts with frosts to try to lower their feverish temperature quickly. And with that disturbing vision, at 21.10, and still 35 degrees, the 5,000m are overwhelmed. Thierry ndikumwenayo should win, who starts with the best brand (one magnificent 12m 47,67s), and tries with a great change in the bell, but condemns him to third place (13m 45,38s) his lack of end in a very slow race. Stuck to his change, the very fast Dutch Niels Laros (13m 44.45s), a halffondist who on Thursday was one of the 13 hares of Faith Kipyegon in his Parisian mile, nailed the knife with his kick In the last curve, and on the line the Swiss Dominic Lobalu finishes.
Midnight is approaching when the podiums are mounted in the center of the grass. Leonardo Fabbri, omnipotent and dancer, directs the Italian orchestra that shouts the Brothers of Italy, His cheerful and lively anthem. In the stands, finished the tumult, Spain responds with sobriety to jaleo. José Peiró, the technical director of the Federation, seriously analyzes the result. “The sports assessment cannot be good. We were there to try to achieve a podium that we knew it was very complicated, but the sixth place does not cover even the objectives we had for this championship,” says Peiró, that, generous, gives a notable, a seven note to the performance. “Jaël has been wonderful, 4×100 records and mixed relay have been beaten. They have been absolutely stellar, yes, but in this competition we are always a team, and we have not met objectives as a team.”
Final classification
1.Italy, 431.5 points. 2. Poland, 405.5. 3. Germany, 397. 4. Netherlands, 384.5. 5. Great Britain, 381. 6. España, 378. 7. France, 354.5. 8. Portugal, 300. 9. Sweden, 288.5. 10. Switzerland, 286. 11. Czech Republic, 283. 12. Greece, 253. 13. Hungary, 244.5. 14. Ukraine, 231. 15. Finlandia, 220.5. 16. Lithuania, 178.5.
The last three descend to Second.
