Miltiadis Tentoglou happily tousled, sleepy eyes, jumps like the angels (8.26m); the abundant hair, exquisite cut, by Mattia Furlani, stands on end in fright when he falls after his first jump, unbalanced and screaming, the ischium of his right thigh broken, and Eusebio Cáceres, master of everything, and a child again, flies with the wind (+3.1) that pushes him in the air like a kite after a perfect, very tight run-up, jumps 8.24m and exclaims: “When you are already 35 years old they tell you that the rest of your life as an athlete is a gift, but for me it is a new beginning.” Then, he packs his backpack and leaves the track chatting happily with the Greek, double Olympic champion and favorite to add a fourth European title to the two Olympic ones and the world championship he has already won.
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In the final (Tuesday, 20:16) he will meet two more Spaniards, the Catalan Jaime Guerra (8.12m, +2.7) and the Alcarreño Lester Lescay (8.03m, only +0.9 wind: his jump lane was next to the stands of Alexander Stadium, a hectare of fresh green grass in the middle of the dry La Mancha landscape, straw-colored grass like cereal stubble, which dominates the always green, before, Birmingham). For the first time in history, three Spaniards in a European long jump final.
A fact: apart from Tentoglou, the light-footed one, who has jumped 8.66m, there are two others, the gigantic Bulgarian Saraboyukov and the versatile Swiss Ehammer, who hover around 8.50m, marks far from the Spaniards. “I was simply relaxed, it wasn’t a big deal. It was a calm jump, and I like jumping 8.26m in a morning qualification,” analyzes and promises Tentoglou, 28 years old. “In the final I want to jump 8.50m, 8.60m and win. I’m in shape, so I should be able to do it. I have defended so many titles that I don’t feel pressure, but excitement.”
“We knew what we were going to face, but now it’s my turn to jump what I’m worth,” says Guerra, from Cornellà, 26 years old and a career marked by injuries, before competing in his second consecutive major final after the Tokyo 25 World Championships. “But what excites me is that it’s Eusebio who gets on the podium, who forgets so many fourth places.”
Cáceres, temples shaved in an elegant fade, perhaps out of vanity, already has some white hairs lightening his tan, has reached the mental zen of not thinking about rivals, which used to overwhelm him so much, nor about what place he can get in his ninth major outdoor final among Games, Worlds, and Europeans. The best Spanish jumper after Yago Lamela was fourth in his world debut, in Moscow 2013 (and he already jumped 8.26m), at 22 years old, and was fourth eight years later at the Tokyo Games, and once again fourth at the 2014 European Championships in Zurich. “It has been a tough year due to personal matters, and I tore an ischium a month ago,” says Cáceres, who left his Onil (Alicante) for Madrid and the Blume residence a decade ago, and then went to Guadalajara to train with Iván Pedroso’s group, before returning to his town, where, contradicting the legend that it is never possible to return home, he found his childhood and embraced it happily. “I’m still with Pedroso, but at a distance. Mentally I feel like a child,” adds the Alicante native, who achieved his personal best (8.37m) in 2013. “I want to leave with my personal best. I really feel I can give more of myself. I don’t want to stay in fourth place. It’s time to stop thinking about others and focus on myself, and to enjoy the competition.”
Dancer’s physique, free spirit, elegant stride, cheerful, Livio Berruti was an aesthete who won the 200m final at the Rome 60 Games with white shoes and socks to feel like Jesse Owens, and sunglasses – “pure narcissism,” he admitted – and in the 60s all sprinters who wanted to feel elegant like Berruti ran with sunglasses, like the athlete and poet Jenaro Talens, and in Birmingham all Italians mourn his death and wear black armbands on their white shirts, and the Spaniard Moha Attaoui runs at 11 in the morning – a sun behind clouds – with sunglasses in his 800m heat. “No, no, nothing aesthetic, I don’t like them much either,” says the Cantabrian athlete, one of the big favorites, after easily qualifying (1m 45.26s) for the Wednesday (13:20) semifinals of the event in which he will try to improve the silver medal won in Rome two years ago. “But I also don’t like squinting because the sun bothers me a lot in the morning.”
Alongside Attaoui, the Extremaduran David Barroso (1m 45.90s) also advanced, the athlete who surprisingly defeated him in the Spanish championship final two weeks ago. It was one more of the tough moments for the exuberant Attaoui, 24 years old, national record holder (1m 42.04s) and a sea of doubts and frustration this summer after a winter in which he nearly broke the world indoor 1,000 meters record. “I had a very hard time. I went from running 3m 31s in the 1,500m in Turku to getting stuck in the next 800m… I had a virus, an infection, tests with very low iron, and the death of my grandfather,” says the athlete from Torrelavega, who started very far back in his heat but found the dynamite he likes so much with 300m to go to move up to sixth on the back straight, lead on the curve and control the Englishman Pattison on the straight, and, with qualification guaranteed, he didn’t mind being overtaken by the Frenchman Meziane. “I didn’t want to show off, because they always tell me I show off in the heats and arrive poorly to the final… But you also have to qualify.”
