Katir and Ingebrigtsen in the 5,000m race at the 2022 European Championships. Sören Stache / Getty
The stadium is great, everyone says, overwhelmed by the heat and humidity pouring in from the nearby Danube and the tiny flies that settle heavily on the white shirts of the athletes discovering the course, stretching their muscles and at the start rehearse they dig their feet into the fine-grained, almost dusty, cement-colored sand of the jump pits or lie down with their towels on the edge of the track, which they think is very fast. The eve of the World Athletics Championships, a gathering of the best athletes in the world in a biannual festive event that has become almost routine due to the pandemic and the postponement of the Tokyo Games to 2021: there were games on the 21st and the World Championship There will be a world championship on the 22nd, games on the 24th and another world championship on the 25th in Tokyo.
“In my city we call them wine flies,” says Ricardo Diéguez, who hails from Lubián in Sanabria and also makes sure that Jaël Bestué, the athlete he trains in the CAR in Sant Cugat, is trying to make them fly away from Barcelona. Bestué, 22, a sprinter of 11.10 seconds over 100 m and 22.54 seconds over 200 m, is one of the new figures in Spanish athletics, he plays the saxophone and sings very well and in his eyes there are no doubts only courage. when, after surviving his good meters at the speed of Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce in Vallehermoso, Diéguez tells Diéguez that in Budapest he will run the 100m, the 200m and the relay, even if he does the Spanish record has to be broken In the 100m (the 11.06 seconds Sandra Myers managed in 1991) she will reach the semifinals, which is a world, and alongside her on the course, indifferent and calm, Sha’Carri Richardson (10.71 seconds this year). the stubborn American, the image of a rebel, a star, as world athletics, in their permanent search for figures who will help the so-called king’s sport regain its lost popularity. However, the saturation of world competitions and the trivialization of records accelerated by shoe technology and the use of LED lights do not help the international association (WA, World Athletics) in its mission.
With the 23-year-old sprinter from Dallas, her zero international match record and her two million followers on Instagram, Bestué, who plays in a different league, will not compete, but Jamaican Shericka Jackson and Fraser-Pryce the Ivorian Marie-Josée Talou in the hectometer on the Budapest stage the other greats that athletics has produced in recent years, unique talents, the best in history, world record holders and unbeatable but not very popular outside the borders athletics. It’s Faith Kipyegon, the Kenyan mother who broke the world records in the 1,500m, mile and 5,000m this summer and will attempt to win the 1,500m and 5,000m in front of 36,000 spectators at the National Stadium in Budapest. They are also Yulimar Rojas, Venezuelan, triple jump world record holder (15.74m) who, unless she sprains her ankle, will almost reach her fourth outdoor World Cup; Mondo Duplantis, Swede, world record holder in pole vault (6.22 m) and unbeatable; Portland, Oregon’s Ryan Crouser, who revolutionized the way weight throws and throws the 15,000-pound ball 75 feet, more than anyone else ever, or 400-meter hurdler Karsten Warholm, who set the world record (45.94 seconds) broke and won gold in Tokyo. Or, the most flamboyant, American sprinter Noah Lyles, who publicly challenged Usain Bolt’s impossible records (9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds) in the 100m and 200m.
In their world, Spanish athletes can hardly speak out, but they can in other areas, such as historical tradition, walking, the very specialty that the international federation wants to condemn to death. Three gold medals in marathon (two by Abel Antón and Martín Fiz), one in distance (Niurka Montalvo) and three gold medals in running (Josep Marín, Chuso García Bragado and Miguel Ángel López) make up the Spanish haul in 40 years of world championships. The leader of the Spanish team, the athlete who has the best chance of contributing to the seven gold medals, twice, in the 20 and 35 kilometers, and the Peruvian Kimberly García as her biggest rival in both distances, is Orce from Granada. María Pérez, 27, the European walking champion who broke the world record over 35 kilometers in May. And among the men who opened the curtain on Saturday’s World Cup between the statues of the Plaza de los Héroes with the 20 kilometers, Álvaro Martín, Alberto Amezcua and Diego García will not be far behind either.
Except for two dispossessed winners in 2009 – the fleeting triumph of Natalia Rodríguez in the 1,500m, who was disqualified after minutes, according to the commissioners, for pushing a rival; the sadness of Marta Domínguez in the 3,000m hurdles, who was penalized for doping years later – no Spanish athlete has raised his arms on the track after winning. In the kingdom of another unbeatable, that of the Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen, still almost a teenager, 22 years old and already so many victories at 1,500 m and 5,000 m, three Spaniards trust his voice. These are Mo Katir, who manages almost 12:45 over the long distance, of which he holds the European record, and twice as fast over 1,500 m (3:29) and also in Budapest, as well as Mario García Romo and Adel Mechaal. In the sultry atmosphere of the stadium, among the sticky wine flies that never stop fluttering, they will be the focus of all Spanish spotlights as early as Saturday afternoon when the first 1,500m race takes place. And in Bestué, of course, so many afternoons.
the grand finale
Saturday 19 8:50 a.m., 20 km walk men (Álvaro Martín, Massimo Stano)
Sunday 20 07.15, 20 km women’s hike (María Pérez, Kimberly García)
19.10 Men’s 100m (Fred Kerley, Noah Lyles, Marcell Jacobs, Ferdinand Omanyala)
Monday 21st 21.50, 100m women (Sha’Carri Richardson, Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, Marie-Josée Jaël Bestué)
Tuesday 22 9.30pm, Women’s 1500m (Faith Kipyegon)
21.42, 3,000m hurdles men (Lamecha Girma, Soufiane el Bakkali, Dani Arce)
Wednesday 23 21.15, 1,500m men (Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Mo Katir, Mario García, Adel Mechaal)
21.50, 400 m hurdles men (Karsten Warholm, Rai Benjamin, Allison dos Santos)
Thursday 24 07.00 35 km hike, women and men (María Pérez, Álvaro Martín)
21.35, 400m men (Wayde van Niekerk)
21.50, women’s 400m hurdles (Femke Bol)
Friday the 25th 7.35 p.m., triple jump women (Yulimar Rojas)
21.40, 200m women (Gabby Thomas, Shericka Jackson, Richardson, Bestué)
21.50, 200m men (Noah Lyles, Letsile Tebogo)
Saturday 26 7:25 p.m., Men’s Pole Vault (Mondo Duplantis)
8.30pm, Men’s 800m (Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Adrián Ben, Saúl Ordóñez, Mohamed Attaoui)
20.50, 5,000m women (Faith Kipyegon)
21.50, women’s 4x100m relay
Sunday 27 20.10, 5,000m men (Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Mo Katir)
20.45, 800m women (Athing Mu, Keely Hodgkinson, Mary Moraa, Lorea Ibarzabal)
21.37, men’s 4x400m relay
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