He debuted in a World Cup, a 4x100m basic reliever in Oregon 22, when one of his idols was removed, Ly already splendid 400m athlete, gets his best brand (50,69s) and is classified for the semifinals of Tokyo just the day he says goodbye to the tracks his other idolized athlete, the mother rocket. “The greats are going,” says Seville, Manchega de la Solana, 28, a 60 subway bullet, who, suddenly, is also among the largest of 400, the goddesses of her generation: Marileidy Paulino, the long legs of the Dominican that slides relaxed, as it should be; Pure geometry of straight angles his back, his arms, his legs raised to the hip, and Sydney McLaughlin, pure silk and rhythm, and what a curve.
With this, with the Californiano Double Olympic champion of the four fences, and also world champion, he will share semifinal on Tuesday (14.23) Paula Sevilla, the sprinter of short distances to which his coach, José Luis Calvo, convinced in winter that he passed the hard and feared 400. And he has adapted so well that, and also the mixed where I would never have arrived in 100 and 200. “It has been fabulous running with Marileidy. He has given me a conversation. He has reassured me, and has run down my inner street, so when it happened to me I have put myself at his rhythm, which is magnificent because it is not going to pull, it is pure fluency.”
Meanwhile, not in Tokyo, he says, Seville’s desire is to get off the 50s and beat the Spanish record of Sandra Myers so old (49,67s 34 years ago), the three queens of the current 400 have already dropped from the 49s and dream of reaching the unattainable, the record of the world of the German world Marita Koch (47.60s 40 years ago). The one that has approached the most, almost until it is burned, has been Naser, which in 2019 fell to 48.14s to win the Doha World Cup, but the fans, which does not forget that the compact Bahrainí was suspended two years to hide from the anti -doping controls, and preferred that it was not her better; McLaughlin, 26, is still too far, more than a second with his 48,74s. Paulino, current world and Olympic champion of the 400, has already run in 48.17s and is the only one who thinks that Koch’s plusmarca could fall in the Tokyo final on Thursday at 15.10 thanks to the competition between three, and equality. “The 47 will keep them for the final,” he announces on Sunday after winning his series quietly (49.85s without disheveled), happy because he has struck the work done to fill his gaps, “the northern line, the passage through the 150 meters.” “And when I went down to 47s, I will think about going down to 46s, I always think about improving and working more and more. My rivals are not Sydney or Salwa. My rivals are called Omega and Seiko, the chronometers in the competition. I just run against time.” And Seville, to his wake, dreams.
