European Team Championships, immediately 12 Azzurri

Athletics, Azzurri

Twelve Azzurri will be competing on the first day of the European Team Championships in Poland: on Friday afternoon at 4:15 p.m., the First Division begins and Italy enters the game, among the sixteen teams competing for the trophy over the weekend in Chorzow. The eve ran fast between the morning training in the warm-up area (while at the Slaski Stadium the Second Division competitions were on stage) and the official meeting in the afternoon, at the hotel in Katowice, where the blue team received greetings from CONI president Giovanni Malagò and secretary general Carlo Mornati, welcomed by FIDAL president Stefano Mei and technical director Antonio La Torre. The classic eve team meeting was also the occasion for captain Gianmarco Tamberi’s speech to his teammates (“We are one of the strongest National Teams in the world, everyone fears us. Individually it is not the race of the year, but as a team it is. And we have to think as a team.”) and to present coaches Marinella Vaccari and Maria Marello with the European Athletics Coaching Awards for their efforts in guiding throwers Sara Fantini and Daisy Osakue to Italian successes and records.

Now it’s time for the competitions. It starts precisely with the throws: the first Italian woman to take the platform will be the women’s weightlifter Monia Cantarella (at 4:15 p.m.), followed closely by European hammer bronze medalist Sara Fantini, who at 4:20 p.m. will find Olympic bronze medalist Malwina Kopron from Poland among her rivals. First race on the track the 400 meters (17.05): the Italian Alice Mangione is in the series of the best accreditations, in the fourth lane, with the external reference of the two strongest fourcenters in Europe, the Dutch Femke Bol (in fifth) and the Polish Natalia Kaczmarek (in sixth). In the triple jump (at 5:22 p.m.) Tobia Bocchi comes in with the best seasonal measure, Castellon’s recent 17.26, in light of Portuguese star Pedro Pablo Pichardo’s waiver: the rules call for three jumps for all, two more rounds for the best eight, and a final jump for the top four. Again 400 meters but in the men’s, at 5:35 p.m., with Italy fielding Lorenzo Benati, and twenty minutes later, at 5:55 p.m., it’s the turn of one of the spearheads of our middle distance such as Nadia Battocletti, starting with the best time in the 5000 meters. Discus at 6:15 p.m. with Daisy Osakue, solo Italian record holder with a fresh 64.57 in Pietrasanta after sharing it since Tokyo with Agnese Maffeis: Germany opted for a change among bigs, out the announced Shanice Craft, in Olympic and European silver medalist Kristin Pudenz.

The pole vault starts at 6:20 p.m., and here too it is a case of refreshing the rules, which at the fourth mistake forces the race to be abandoned: there is Claudio Stecchi for Italy’s hopes, in the face of so much European nobility including Poland’s Piotr Lisek. The progression: 5.30-5.45-5.55-5.65-5.70-5.75-5.80-5.85. In the 800 (from 6:28 p.m.) the blue team relies on Catalin Tecuceanu in a race led by Frenchman Yanis Meziane. Reenacting Munich is the 3000 steeplechase event: Osama Zoghlami, who was bronze medalist, reunites with European champion Topi Raitanen (Finland) and fourth-place finisher Daniel Arce (Spain). Sprint, 100 meters, to complete the first day’s program. Among the women it’s the season debut for Zaynab Dosso, entered in the first of the two series having no season chrono: she is in the fifth lane, with Spain’s Jael Bestué in fourth and France’s Carolle Zahi in sixth. At 7:50 p.m. the men’s 100, with the second series scheduled for 8 p.m.: that’s the one that includes European indoor 60 champion Samuele Ceccarelli from Italy, in the third lane, alongside France’s Jimmy Vicaut.