Louis vinker
08/02/2021 11:31
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 08/02/2021 11:31 AM
The men's high jump event, the dialogue between
Mutaz Essa Barshim
and
Gianmarco Tamberi
with the referee, the embrace between them and the celebration will be marked as
a historic moment for athletics
, as a symbol of the nobility of the competition and as a indelible image of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
After both had a perfect contest, traversing all their heights on the first attempt (2m24, 2m27, 2m30, 2m33, 2m35 and 2m37), both also failed at 2m39.
But the test was very open, there were still six competitors who were still fighting there in the medal zone.
When the other four stayed, the gold had to be decided between the Qatari and the Italian.
They had the possibility of a tiebreaker, although in
athletics it does not require a tiebreak or penalty shootout
.
"Can we share the gold medal?"
Barshim asked the referee offering the tiebreaker.
The official nodded and Tamberi couldn't believe it.
The hug between the winners was moving, followed by the tears of the Italian and his father and coach, Marco, from the stands.
It's made of gold?
Tamberi and Barshim bite the medal.
Photo: Reuters
The emotions did not stop there
, not even when they both went to wrap themselves in their flags and start the traditional celebration.
At the edge of the track, Tamberi watched as another Italian from his team, the
Fiamme Oro
de Pádova, astonished the world by capturing the final of the 100 meter sprint: Lamont Marcell Jacobs.
He probably couldn't understand so many emotions together.
And there he exhibited the plaster with the inscription "The road to Tokyo", for which he had suffered so much.
Severe injuries were, a few years ago, on the verge of knocking out Tamberi.
And also to Barshim.
“We just looked at each other and we already knew what we were going to decide. That was it. Gimbo is one of my best friends. This is the true spirit of sport and it is what we wanted to convey ”, said
Barshim, who in his country is a national idol, is the Messi of the Qataris
.
If Italy had practically no history in the highest level of the 100 meter sprint - although it did in other speed events with Livio Berutti and Pietro Mennea, for example - Jacobs placed it high this Sunday, ending the reign of the Caribbean and Americans .
But neither could the Italian antecedents be found in another demanding discipline such as the high jump, where his best Olympic performances were the sixth places of Giacomo Crosa in Mexico 68 and Rodolfo Bergamo in Montreal, eight years later.
Gianmarco Tamberi's own father, Marco, was in the final of Moscow 80, but without opting for the main positions, he was 15th
.
Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi with their arms raised.
Photo: EFE
Tokyo and the Cold War
And it had to be Tokyo, no less, the venue for this epic high jump battle
, just as it happened in the previous Games held on this very stage of the National Stadium in 1964.
Let's go back to that moment, when the Soviet Union began to push the United States in Olympic competitions.
The high jump was almost exclusive territory of
the USA squad
, which until Melbourne 1956 had won 14 of the previous contests, but the Soviet school commanded by teacher Vladimir Dyatchov had launched a true phenomenon: Valeriy Brumel.
The high jump, as it was practiced at that time, has very little to do with what happens these days. Athletes "attacked" the rod head-on, either as the so-called "ventral" style - Brumel was a perfectionist of the "straddle" - and some even used the rudimentary "scissors", trying to pass the rod first with one leg, then with the other one. They fell onto heavy mats and sometimes directly onto the sand.
At the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960, a very young Brumel won a silver medal, behind his compatriot Robert Shavakladze. But
there, too, the rivalry grew with the best of the Americans, John Thomas,
who became the first man to pass what - at the time - was considered an "impossible" barrier: 2.20 meters. Thomas broke the world record for that height at the Stanford University stadium just weeks before the Rome Games.
However, Brumel's refined technique and fierce competitive gene gave him superiority in their matches (9-1).
Something that Thomas, over time, would understand with a certain philosophy:
“I earned much more for being second than for being first.
If I had won so many competitions, I would not have learned so much from people, "he
said when he was honored upon his retirement at Boston University.
Valeriy Brumel in Tokyo 1964.
Also at that time, marked by the cold war, the annual US-USSR athletic matches were a haven,
a touch of peace amid so much tension.
In 1962 they competed in that Stanford stadium, Brumel broke the world record with 2.26 meters and both teams left together, all their athletes paraded hand in hand, before the ovation of 70 thousand spectators.
Brumel, throughout his campaign, broke the world record six times to place it at 2m28, an astonishing mark in that decade and which he achieved in another confrontation with the United States, on July 21, 1963 at the Moscow stadium (Lenin at that time , Luzhniki in our days).
The Tokyo Games offered, among its main dishes, the new Brumel-Thomas duel
, which lasted for several hours.
Both exceeded 2.18 meters and missed two centimeters higher, leaving the gold medal for the Soviet, who had needed only one attempt in the 2m16 against two of his rival.
The string of records and the Olympic gold made Brumel a symbol of Soviet sport, with a popularity at the height of Yashin or, even more, comparable to that of Yuri Gagarin ...
Brumel was born in Siberia, he
was the son of Ukrainian geologists
, who were transferred (cared for, actually) there when their country was invaded by the Nazis, in World War II.
After his victory in Tokyo, he was going to take 65 as a "sabbatical" when, in October, on a cold Moscow night, he collided with his motorcycle.
The fractures forced several operations, they could save his leg, but he did not jump again.
He graduated from sports psychology, attempted a career as a playwright, and wrote an opera based on his own life.
Valeriy Brumel died on January 26, 2003 in Moscow and is buried in the Novodevich Cemetery alongside several Russian heroes
.
John Thomas, Brumel's great rival.
Photo: archive
The Fosbury Flop
In the Olympic Games in Mexico, in 1968, the Americans regained the hegemony of the high jump
. But that moment was revolutionary for the specialty and not specifically because of the test result:
Dick Fosbury, the winner, used a surprising style
, taking the rod with his back. The experts initially doubted this technique but, from then on, it is the one used by all high jump specialists:
the popular Fosbury Flop
.
Brumel's world record was only beaten exactly half a century ago by another American, Pat Matzdorf, at 2.29 meters at Berkeley, although in reality a Chinese man named Ni Chi-Chin had achieved that same height a few months earlier: he was not homologated yet. that China was not yet integrated into the official athletics competitions or the Olympic Games.
The closest times of the high jump brought who was, probably, the most talented and notable of all the specialists:
the Cuban Javier Sotomayor
.
Only because of the boycott that the regime of his country decided with the Olympic Games in Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988, the number of gold medals of the "Soto" in the Olympic events is not higher, he only has the one he obtained in Barcelona 92 , plus a second place finish at Sidney 2000.
Javier Sotomayor, in action.
But Sotomayor raised the specialty to impressive levels and his world record of 2.44 meters
, achieved almost three decades ago in Salamanca (July 27, 1993) still remains untouchable.
The Cuban came to jump 2.40 meters or more 17 times, one of them in our country, when he dazzled during the Pan American Games.
Barshim, the magic hopper
Just the appearance of Barshim seemed to glimpse a touch-up to the record, but he was left at the gates: 2.43 meters as the personal best seven years ago in Brussels and a dozen competitions above the 2m40.
Born on June 24, 1991,
Mutaz Essa Barshim is a formidable competitor and a jumper who, with every technical detail, dazzles crowds
.
He was proclaimed world champion twice, London 2017 and Doha 2019, here in front of his own audience.
“I am not a legend. Sometimes the legends are not true. But I am very happy that so many people have come and that I have won at home, it feels different. I wanted to do it for them. They are the champions, not me, ”he
said that time.
For Barshim, that World Cup triumph allowed him to return to the fore definitively, after the injury he suffered a year earlier in Hungary, in a tournament where - over 2.46 meters - he was trying to beat Sotomayor's record.
Mutaz Essa Barshim, the Messi of the high jump Photo: REUTERS / Kai Pfaffenbach
He suffered a torn ankle ligament, in a scene that seemed to be traced to what had happened to his friend Tamberi before the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Barshim fought for his first Olympic gold at the London Games in 2012, where he stayed at 2.29 meters.
The winner was the Russian Ivan Ukhov with 2m33, the same height as the American Erik Kynard.
The Qatari bronze medal, shared with two other athletes, is about to become a silver medal, as Ivan Ukhov was disqualified by the TAS and his appeal is pending.
In the following Games, in Rio de Janeiro, the winner was the Canadian Derek Drouin with 2.38 meters and Barshim secured, this time, the silver medal with 2m36, relegating his great rival of those moments, the Ukrainian Bogdan Bondarenko.
The moment of the pact between Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Essa Barshim.
Photo: EFE
Tamberi flew again
For those Games in Rio, Gianmarco Tamberi, who emerged in all his splendor, was already mentioned among the candidates: European champion in Amsterdam, a personal best of 2m38 in indoor competitions, during the winter season, the "indoor" world title in Portland and a record of 2m39 in outdoor testing.
This happened weeks before the Olympics, on July 15 in Monte Carlo.
And when he went to the next height, attacking the 2m41, he suffered a torn ligament in his ankle, the one that could definitely cost him the race.
So now in her tears and emotional discharge after enjoying the gold in Tokyo, she was able to display the plaster plant and say:
“After the injury, my only dream was to return.
They had told me that maybe I could not jump any more ... It was a long journey, it was a long time waiting, but the sacrifice was worth it ”
.
Economist and rock musician, Gianmarco Tamberi celebrates the gold medal after the men's high jump final.
Photo EFE / Diego Azubel
Tamberi was born on June 11, 1992 in Civitanova, in the Macerata region, and lives in Ancona.
His beginnings were with basketball, but around 2010 he began to practice athletics, encouraged by his father.
He also graduated in Economics and is a drummer for a rock band, Dark Melody.
"Gimbo feeds on the energy of the crowds"
, they say in their federation, FIDAL, for the festive spirit that encourages in the competitions.
Surely he will have missed him in Tokyo - the pandemic forces him to compete without an audience - but he was encouraged by those around him, team assistants and all those who clapped their hands in the preview of the jumps.
Tamberi spent almost a year away from competitions, in rehabilitation work, at the beginning of this season he achieved the European indoor runner-up and once again showed a level close to 2m35.
Gianmarco Tamberi congratulates his compatriot Marcell Lamont Jacobs, winner of the gold in the 100 meters.
Photo: EFE / EPA / CHRISTIAN BRUNA
Golden friends
His friendship with Barshim dates back a decade, when they participated in the Junior World Cup in Moncton, Canada
.
“We
just got along, we became friends, I went to her wedding.
In the competition we all want to win, but we both understand how difficult the high jump is and how much we sacrifice to get back, ”
said the Italian.
In more than a thousand Olympic track and field finals held from 1896 to the present day, this will be the second time a shared gold medal will appear on record.
The previous one dates from 1912, but it has little relation.
After the Stockholm Games, where he had swept the Decathlon, the American Jim Thorpe was disqualified for alleged professionalism (with a racist tinge in the decision, due to his ancestry from indigenous communities).
They passed the gold medal to the Swede Hugo Wieslander.
Only seven decades later, the IOC agreed to return the title to Thorpe's descendants, although without evicting the Swede from that position.
What happened now in Tokyo is different, and even surprising.
A hymn to the best values of sport where the passion and dedication of each one is not incompatible with the recognition of the quality of the rival.
Tamberi and Barshim excited everyone.
The flags of Qatar and Italy at the top.
Along with that of Belarus, for the bronze of Maksim Nedasekau.
Photo: REUTERS / Hannah Mckay
Look also
Tokyo 2020: the emotional golden pact between the Italian Tamberi and the Qatari Barshim in the high jump final
Tokyo 2020: Sifan Hassan, the athlete who went viral for her fall and triumph in the 1,500 meters, was gold in the 5,000