Life flies by, who before flying takes care of his legs with a drink of baking soda, but he doesn’t drink broccoli juice like many colleagues do because he doesn’t want to fool his body or himself. An 800m athlete, he says, has to learn to generate lactate and eliminate it, to consume it to continue having energy, and he shows his love for the lactate that poisons his veins in the last 200m, the last lap of the Gallur ring. It is the key to his 1,000m world record. Run, fly, that section, alone ahead of everyone, in 26.55s, what I thought, what I could. But it doesn’t beat the world record. He looks at the clock after crossing the finish line and kicks the ground, anger, frustration. 2m 14.53s. A spectacular brand. He erases the European record of the great Wilson Kipketer, but remains three tenths behind Ayanleh Suleiman’s 2m 14.20s.
It is the third world record in history and a reason to, after the first duel, bend over a bucket in the center of the court and vomit the lactate with bile. The usual routine. He only has words to talk about the public that fills the pavilion and carries him along. “”, he says, poetically. And he also talks about the hares, Matienzo up to 500m and Ostrowski up to 800m, who, helped by the LED lights, pass the set times, but who do not know how to get out of the way with sufficient skill. “I had to yell at them to get out of the way,” he says. “And I had to open myself on the outside to pass them. Maybe that’s where the tenths went.”
Enrique Llopis is not worried about lactate, broccoli or bicarbonate, as he only stays on the track for 7.45s, just enough time to beat the Spanish record for the 60m hurdles that he himself shared with Orlando Ortega in 7.48s. He is enthusiastically applauded by Javier Moracho, the first great visible face of hurdles in Spain, who held the national record for several years with 7.60s. Life is a breeze for the 25-year-old Bellregard giant, who has lost weight and gained strength and speed, and not so long ago he let himself be dazzled alongside Asier Martínez, running almost at a youth age, alongside the tremendous Grant Holloway, on the same Carabanchel track where he set the world record at 6.29s. The 7.45s are the best European mark of the year and an indication that in the next Indoor World Championships he can already achieve the medal that he is close to in all the major competitions, a collector of fourth places.
Together, the best mark of the Madrid night was achieved by the Portuguese athlete Agate de Sousa, 25, who won the long jump with a jump of 6.97m, the best world mark of the year.
