Edoardo Stronati moves everyone: “I’ve let everyone down, even my grandfather, who is no longer with us.”
22-year-old Edoardo Stronati vented his frustration after being eliminated in the high jump final at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham. The young Italian athlete had three failed attempts at the opening height of 2.18 meters and was eliminated from the competition.
Speaking to Rai Sport, the athlete from the Fiamme Gialle looked visibly disappointed and couldn’t hold back his tears: “I’m sorry because I let myself down. I let down the people back home. I let down the other guys in the competition because I didn’t stop to watch them; it’s the first time in my life I’ve left the platform early, but I really couldn’t stay. Above all, I let down my grandfather Italo, who is no longer with us and to whom I had made a promise. I’ll make up for it, but today I’m sorry about everything.” On the eve of the competition, Gianmarco Tamberi himself had explained that Stronati had been going through “difficult days.”
Tamberi then pulled off the feat of the evening: the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion won his fourth continental gold medal by clearing 2.32 meters—his season’s best—in a final featuring four Italian athletes. The silver medal went to Ukraine’s Oleh Doroshchuk with a jump of 2.30, while 20-year-old Matteo Sioli took bronze with 2.27 before being forced to withdraw due to a thigh muscle injury.
It was a special evening for Italian track and field, which also claimed the gold medal in the 10,000 meters thanks to the outstanding Nadia Battocletti, and the bronze in the 200 meters with Fausto Desalu. The star athlete from Trentino, competing for the Fiamme Azzurre, clocked a time of 31:41.17—her season’s best—finishing ahead of the Dutch runner Maureen Koster and the Belgian Jana van Lent. This is her second gold medal at this year’s European Championships, following the one she won Tuesday evening in the 5,000 meters with a time of 15:37.84. For Battocletti, this is the fourth European gold medal of her career, in a season already highlighted by her indoor world title in the 3,000 meters at the World Championships in Torun, Poland, last March, which made her a world champion for the first time in her career.
