Ecstasy of the Spanish march in the European Championships in Birmingham: two golds, one silver, and one bronze

Labyrinth of shady alleys at nine in the morning, Saturday of empty trams, street sweepers and the roar of garbage trucks in the neighborhood already known as Little Spain in the Birmingham of merchants. It is invaded by more than a hundred walkers who, with their sneakers, stiff foot, crush the streets, heel, sole, toe, alternately, at 14, 15 and 16 per hour. Uphill, on a ramp, downhill on a slide to Victoria Square. Gloria sounds in the brains and emotions twice in 10 minutes, as Paul McGrath wanted, a Catalan from Barcelona, who adds, at 24 years old, a European gold in the half marathon to his world bronzes from a year ago in Tokyo and the European silver. And shortly after, María Pérez, 30 years old, tireless harvester of medals and victories, achieves her second European gold in the same distance after her debut eight years ago in Berlin, and she also has four world championships and an Olympic gold. The spectacular morning of Spanish racewalking is later completed by Miguel Ángel López with silver in the racewalking marathon and Raquel González with bronze in the longest distance.

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McGrath is already out first, proud, announcing that his color, Catalan, Spanish, Scottish, so many roots, would be the dominant one. Surrounded by Italians in white and his young teammate Álvaro López, he holds on, restrains himself, waits for his moment and when it comes, halfway through the half marathon, kilometer 10, he feels strong. Legs full of energy, calm head, dancing heart, and, as he dreamed, as he wished, he changes the pace and goes alone towards victory, and the glory that awaits him. He wins with 1h 23m 23s ahead of the favorite Italian Francesco Fortunato (1h 23m 36s) and his compatriot Andrea Cosi, bronze (1h 23m 49s).

In the same narrow maze of streets, continuous ups and downs and change of surface, the women marched the half marathon (21 kilometers and 95 and a half meters, with María Pérez in the lead, ahead of Antonella Palmisano, sharing pace and sidewalk with Miguel Ángel López, who was second in the men’s marathon (42.195 kilometers). The Spaniard wins with 1h 30m 06s, a new world record for the distance, which began to be contested this January. The previous was 1h 31m 39s by the Chinese Yunyan Jiang. Second in Birmingham was the Italian Alexandrina Mihai, 1h 31m 4s, and bronze went to the Ukrainian Lyudmila Olyanovska, 1h 31m 7s.

They are the first two golds of Spanish athletics in a European Championship so far dull for the orange team, barely brightened until this Saturday by Marta García’s silver in the 5,000m and Moha Attaoui’s bronze in the 800m.

The ecstasy of racewalking is rounded off in the marathon by Miguel Ángel López, silver with 2h 56m 57s, only eight seconds behind the Italian Massimo Stano, and ahead of the French Aurélien Quinio. And the finale is the bronze of Raquel González (3h 20m 49s; won by the Italian Sofia Fiorini) in a morning of glory in Birmingham.