Paris 2024 Olympics, Italians to medal: Mattia Furlani
Paris Olympics: Azzurri to medal
Mattia Furlani won silver at the Glasgow 2024 World Indoor Championships in the long jump, earning his first major medal at only 19 years old. È the third child of a family that è moved to Rieti in 2010, after living in Grottaferrata, in the Castelli Romani. His family è is known for the successes of his sister Erika (runner-up world junior champion in 2013 and European under-23 bronze medalist in 2017), but also for the sporting achievements of his father Marcello, a high jumper with a record of 2.27 meters in 1985, and his mother Khaty Seck, a sprinter of Senegalese origin, who also supported him technically.
He constantly attended the athletic field, but from age 8 to 13 he è devoted himself mainly to basketball, his other great passion. As a cadet he began to showcase his talent in athletics, winning the Italian championship in the high jump his freshman year, and in 2020 he set national under-16 records in the high jump (2.10) and 150 meters (16.57). He reached the final at the European U20s in 2021, competing against athletes three years older, and improved the Italian record for 16-year-olds with a jump of 2.17 meters.
In the 2022 winter season, he also demonstrated his qualities in the long jump, jumping 7.47 meters twice, just five centimeters from the indoor category record. Outdoors, with a jump of 7.87 meters, he broke the Italian student record held by Andrew Howe for 21 years, increasing it by 26 centimeters. He then won two golds at the European U18 Championships in Jerusalem in the long (8.04 meters) and high jump.
In 2023 he set the European U20 indoor record in the long jump with 7.99 meters, and in the outdoor season he jumped 8.44 meters in favorable winds (+2.2), the best under-20 performance ever in any condition, and 8.24 meters in regular conditions, breaking Howe’s Italian junior record after 19 years. He won the European U20 title in Jerusalem with 8.23 meters. In 2024, improving his European U20 indoor record to 8.08 meters, he è became the Italian overall indoor record holder with 8.34 meters, breaking Howe’s 2007 record of 8.30 meters, and took silver at the World Indoor Championships with the same measure as winner Miltiadis Tentoglou (8.22 meters). Outdoors he became the under-20 world record holder in Savona with a jump of 8.36 meters. He attends an institution with a linguistic focus.
