Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

In the afternoon in Istanbul, Adrián Ben (24) accelerates in the last meters of the 800 and sees many things. Benjamin Robert, the rocky Frenchman in the lead, is losing speed. And the goal is getting closer.

And gold, too.

Ben accelerates and as he accelerates and overtakes rivals and approaches Robert, he thinks of his coach, Arturo Martín, the same one who had trained Arturo Casado and Fernando Carro in his day, who always tells him:

–If you have to throw yourself to win, do it five meters before the finish line. That’s how you will arrive. Don’t do it before or after.

All that thinks Ben.

Although he disobeys.

“I tried to throw myself, but it didn’t work out,” he says in the bowels of the Ataköy Arena.

It is not thrown, but it is enough for him.

It is enough for him to put his chest.

Well, that’s how he steals three thousandths from Benjamin Robert and takes the gold, with 1m47s338.

And then she kneels down and tries to cry, but it doesn’t come out.

–I swear to you that I have tried –says the new 800 European champion, the sixth that our athletics has given.

“Of course, I didn’t know what to do,” says Ben, whose record is beginning to round off: he already has an Olympic final and a world final, and now this European gold. And he sees that he had been preparing it. And other times I have done the Mbappé. Or Cristiano Ronaldo. And yesterday he asked my mother: ‘If I win, what do I do, mom?

–And what did she tell him?

-Enjoy it. And that I have done, with my lap of honor.

His victory is of justice, also an act of faith.

Until now Ben had been an Olympic and world finalist, but had no international medals.

-And I saw Mariano García last summer (gold in the European Championship in Munich), and I saw him ride the bike, and I thought: ‘I want that too!’. That was my dream, and here it is.

And in his speech, he reviews the race.

The pace has been contained, with Robert always in the lead. He has passed the 400 in 53s44 seconds, medium pace, and behind there are nerves. Learmonth, Kramer and Crestan touch each other, and Ben sneaks inside and is already higher up.

-I thought: ‘It’s mine’. And I have slipped. And at 220m I said to myself: ‘Now or never’. And I have placed myself higher still. And at 120m I saw myself with the medal and in the end I didn’t know whether to skip Robert, because I already saw myself with the gold.

And now he remembers his parents, who take him from Viveiro to Lugo every day to train, because in Viveiro there is no running track (another athlete without a track, like Mariano García, like Javier Mirón): one hundred kilometers one way and one hundred kilometers lap. And he also remembers Águeda Marqués, his girlfriend, who these days in Istanbul has been a finalist in the 1,500. And from his coach, and even from that Physical Education teacher who, as a child, had encouraged him to do this.

Well, Ben is a grateful athlete.

And for this reason, before leaving, he tells us the pens:

Thanks for coming and telling.