Once again, the athletics of our country takes flight: it accelerates towards the European Championships in Istanbul, which is already looming in the background, fifteen days away.
Before continuing reading, it is convenient to take a breath and assume the absences.
Mo Katir (indoor European record for 3,000 m this week) and Mario García Romo (Spanish record for the mile ten days ago) have announced that they will not continue this winter. Having fulfilled their challenges on the indoor track, both have decided to retire until the summer, setting themselves even greater challenges than an indoor European: both are thinking about the summer World Cups in Budapest, actually the big event of the year.
(For this reason, none of them have been seen this weekend by Gallur, home of the National Indoor).
Yes, Mariano García has been seen, the eighth century from Cuevas de Reyllo, world gold in the hall last year, European gold outdoors in the summer, one-man-orchestra that starts the motorcycle and almost always takes everything ahead.
Almost always, not on this Sunday.
Well, this time Mariano García starts like a devil, at 24.51 the first 200 and at 50.53 the 400, but in his wake the others stick to him, who have seen him coming, and among them the surprising Elvin Canales, one of the revelations of the year , and also Saúl Ordóñez, an old dog, and Javier Mirón, who returns from beyond the grave, months and months out of action due to injuries.
Mariano García gives it gas, the bike runs like hell, as if this were a Diamond League meeting, and crosses the 600 in the lead, in 1m17s62, but Ordóñez maneuvers from behind, who breaks into the straight and throws himself over the paintings to snatch the gold.
It has been difficult for the Murcian to identify the defeat: before the official results come out, he begins his lap of honor, no one alerts him that Ordóñez has beaten him, with three hundredths of a margin, in 1m45s88.
Then, with the score rearranged, they both hug each other on the court.
And in the mixed zone, Ordóñez confesses:
“Before the race, Mariano had suggested something to me. He had already made me understand that this was going to go really fast.”
More things happen in Gallur, the scene of these Spanish Championships. More things happen because athletics is multidisciplinary, and while some run, others throw and others jump.
The one who jumps is the majestic Jordan Díaz (21), a perfect triple jumper, a jumper born in Cuba and based in Guadalajara since 2021, where he is trained by Iván Pedroso, a coach who was a myth of length and hardly needs more introductions.
(Yulimar Rojas, Ana Peleteiro, Tessy Ebosele or Fátima Diame train under her orders).
Jordan Díaz has been Spanish since last year, but he must wait until the summer of 2024 to debut in the national uniform, and this fact generates mixed feelings among the federation leaders, since they see him collecting medals in the future but also losing opportunities in the future. Present: Jordan Díaz, tall and sharp, is the best triple jumper on the planet today, nobody coughs him but he does cough up Jonathan Edwards’ world record, a relic from 1995 (18.29m).
Outdoors, Jordan Díaz has already projected himself up to 17m87m (he is the 13th of all time), but this time we are indoors and now he has focused on the Spanish record, an objective that he surpasses on three occasions, until leaving it in 17.59m, best world brand of the year.
“And now, to rest and think about the challenges of the summer,” says Jordan Díaz, who wears Barça (like Yulimar Rojas) and who will be saying to himself: “Let’s see if they finally give me a field and I can appear in a World Cup or in a European”.
Óscar Husillos (29) has outstanding debts with the covered track.
He thinks and gets overexcited when he goes back to the winter of 2018, five years have already passed: it is the World Championships in Birmingham and Husillos has broken the European record of 400 m (44s92) and has been proclaimed world champion, and then he unleash the drama.
They are interviewing him on television and on the air they tell him that he has been disqualified for stepping on the inside lane in the second curve and there the world falls on him.
Everything vanishes in a flash, and the sprinter from Palencia takes time to redo himself and comes and goes for years (he has a European silver in the room in 2019 and a gold in 2021), but he has never shown himself again as in that distant 2018 in Birmingham.
Never, until this Sunday in Gallur: he goes up to 45s58, surpassing his Spanish record of 2019 (45s66), and with him drags Iñaki Cañal, a newcomer to the elite who is placed second in the four hundredth place of all time, with 45s89 , already ahead of David Canal, Bruno Hortelano or Gaietà Cornet, illustrious from other times.
And there are more wonders.
And they take place at the close of the championship, in the last test, when two heavyweights of the hurdles face each other, a European champion and world medalist (Asier Martínez), and his adventure partner, Quique Llopis, always a covert, much more inspired by this winter.
Both are long-lined and very technical, and they start side by side, but Asier Martínez hesitates at the first fence and tries to correct himself with a swing of his arms that actually unbalances him in the rest of the test and ends up knocking down the fifth obstacle, the last one, while watching how Llopis, three meters ahead, is projected onto the paintings and signs a surprise.
He had appeared in Gallur with a best time of 7.56 and leaves with 7.48: Llopis has equaled the Spanish record that Orlando Ortega, another Cuban nationalized as Jordan Díaz, has worn since 2017, and, like Husillos in the 400m, he is placed with the second European brand this winter.
Earlier, on Saturday, Jaël Bestué (22) had caressed the Spanish 60m record by registering 7.19 in the semifinal (and 7.20 in the final) to surpass Maribel Pérez, Spanish record holder (7.16), who remains at 7.32.
And Adel Mechaal (32) had shown prodigious fitness: building a career for himself.
Running alone, without hares, he starts at 2m35s per kilometer and goes up to 7m44s15, a championship record, with a margin of twelve seconds over Fernando Carro, who is silver.
Fifteen days from Istanbul, and Mo Katir, Mario García Romo or Jordan Díaz still absent (Mariano García has not yet defoliated the flower, he still does not know if he will be in Turkey or not), the athletics of our country seems very alive and very kicking .
