What a great weekend, the one just ended, for Italian athletics: Larissa Iapichino and Gianmarco Tamberi have literally surpassed each other and established prestigious records in the long and high jump.
Let's start with the enfant prodige. The daughter of art, by now, is no longer just the daughter of the great Fiona May, but - it should be said - in this case the children outnumber their parents.
At just 19 years old, Larissa Iapichino equaled her mother's indoor record, jumping 6.91 meters at the Absolute Italian Indoor Championships held in Ancona. The great champion of Caribbean origins had established this measure at 28, winning the indoor European Championships in Valencia in 1998; his daughter succeeds when she has recently turned 19.
This performance - no less than junior world record - also qualifies the girl for the next Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in which she will try to take home a medal.
Gianmarco Tamberi, on the other hand, is already an established champion, boasting an indoor World title in that great season which then saw him miss the Rio Games due to injury. This time the Games are his obsession and, week after week, Gimbo seems to get there with an increasingly growing condition.
In the same Marche setting, Tamberi jumps 2.35 in the high jump, a measure that is worth the seasonal world record: in this 2021, however, that has just begun, so far no one has jumped like him. Result that comes just a few days after a comforting 2.34 recorded in Torun.
Also in Torun, in two weeks, there will be the European Indoor Championships: that will be an opportunity to admire these two athletes, hoping that they will be able to maintain the condition until the beginning of August, when the spotlight will turn on the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Will it be the right time for Italian athletics to finally get out of that abyss in which it has been locked up for too long? We hope that the sensations will be replaced by facts.
Article Iapichino-Tamberi, Italian athletics flies to Tokyo was first published on Sports Blog.
