Larissa Iapichino among the stars of Monte Carlo
Larissa Iapichino in Monte Carlo
Years ago, it was 2015, she recounted how she fell in love with athletics after witnessing the Monte Carlo meet live, a birthday gift from mom Fiona May. On Friday night, eight years later, Larissa Iapichino will be among the stars of the Herculis for the first time at Louis II Stadium, the ninth leg of the Wanda Diamond League 2023, with her U23 European Championships gold medal ideally around her neck. Emotions, strong vibes, like those that Alessandro Sibilio will feel, and while it is true that Rai Benjamin’s forfeit deprives the 400 hurdles ‘showdown’ of one of the three super bigs, it is also true that Olympic champion Karsten Warholm and world champion Alison Dos Santos, the first and third in history, remain in the running. On the world record-breaking track, Yeman Crippa will run the 5,000 meters, looking for a chrono in line with his potential, not yet fully expressed in the season. And it will be an absolute Diamond League debut for Elena Carraro, fresh from her European U23 silver in Espoo in the 100hs. An unmissable meeting that will be televised live on Friday night on Rai 3, Sky Sport Summer and Sky Sport Arena from 8 to 10 p.m.
Not enough champions in the long, Larissa Iapichino will also be up against the queen of the triple, Venezuelan world record holder Yulimar Rojas, a sumptuous 15.18 in Chorzow last Sunday in the Diamond League to start taking off towards her galactic measurements. In the very same hours on Sunday, the Italian jumper was cashing in certainties with the 6.93 that secured her the U23 continental title in the first jump.
The statistics speak for themselves: 2 for 2, two participations and two victories for the 21-year-old from the Yellow Flames in this year’s Diamond League, in Florence and Stockholm. To aspire to a hat trick, she needs to beat the world’s strongest again, minus German Olympic and rainbow champion Malaika Mihambo, who will have to forgo the World Championships in Budapest because of a muscle injury suffered at the national championships: on the platform in Monaco are Serbian world indoor gold medalist Ivana Vuleta, British European indoor gold medalist Jazmin Saywers, Nigerian world silver medalist and Olympic bronze medalist Ese Brume, in-season seven-meter jumpers Ackelia Smith (Jamaica, 7.08) and Tara Davis (USA, 7.07), as well as France’s Hilary Kpatcha, who beat her at the EuroTeam in Chorzow, the USA’s Quanesha Burks and Spain’s Fatima Diame.
