Mattia Furlani for the “Men’s Rising Star 2024”
È went on to medal in all three major events of the season, peaking with bronze at the Paris Olympics. Three podiums at the age of nineteen, plus the U20 world record in the long jump taken to 8.38, propelled Mattia Furlani to nomination as “Men’s Rising Star 2024”, rising star, emerging global athlete, in the World Athletics Oscars awarded annually by World Athletics.
The winner will be made official on Dec. 1, but the presence of the Fiamme Oro blue è already a valuable recognition for his superlative season: silver at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, silver at the European Championships in Rome, third place in the first career Olympics at the Stade de France.
The jumper coached in Rieti by mama-coach Khaty Seck è among the nominees for the World Athletics Awards 2024 along with two other young stars, Jamaican triple jumper Jaydon Hibbert fourth at the Olympics and Dutch middle distance runner Niels Laros (sixth in Paris in the 1500), this year already awarded Men’s Rising Star by European Athletics, the same title that last year è went to Furlani himself. Now the “challenge” moves to a world scale, for an award that in the past è been won by stars such as Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, Norway’s Karsten Warholm, Canada’s Andre De Grasse, and so far è has never been won by an Italian.
Meanwhile, Furlani è working in Tenerife to prepare for the 2025 sports season, which will end with the World Championships in Tokyo next September, but which already in March will put the first medals up for grabs at the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
