The Italians are coming

Italy had an absolutely storming championship with 11 gold medals and 24 medals in total. Maybe it was because they were at home, maybe it was because all their stars showed up. Many of the medals were expected, but many more were not. Italy increased their tally for the year to 49 new national records having been set.

Highlights included:

–Lorenzo Simonelli running the second fastest time in the world this year in the 110m hurdles at 13.05

–Olympic Champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs being healthy. Jacobs won gold in the 100m in 10.02 and led the 4x100m relay team to victory.

One athlete who definitely had a spring in his step was Gianmarco Tamberi. After confirming his high jump victory with a 2.34m clearance, he appeared to fall to the ground injured and pulled off his shoe, only to reveal a collection of plastic springs. He then got up and jumped 2.37m just to put a cherry on top of the performance. An incredible showman! We can’t wait to see what he has in store for us in Paris after giving us one of the moments of the Games last time out in sharing gold with Mutaz Barshim in Tokyo.

The French breathe a sigh of relief

The French put in a creditable performance, coming second in the medal table with 16 in total. After the disaster that was the team performance in Budapest and the negative press with the selection chaos in the run up, things went much better than expected.

The two most noteworthy performances were:

–Cyrena Samba-Mayela is a legitimate Olympic gold medal threat in the 100m hurdles, running a world leading time of 12.31.

–Kevin Mayer getting his qualification score for the Olympics while avoiding awkward optics in a decathlon he technically didn’t qualify to compete in. He absolutely jogged the 1500m to avoid potentially taking a medal from his French compatriot Makenson Gletty.

Jakob has his swagger back

Lest we forget how good he is – and how young he is – Jakob Ingebrigtsen at the age of 23 has eleven gold medals across European Indoor and Outdoor Championships and is already the most successful man ever at the European Outdoor Championships with six gold medals.

He won both the 5000m and 1500m in what can only be described as comfortable fashion, and continues to put to rest any concerns that he hasn’t recovered from his injury over the winter.

As pointed out in a tweet by journalist Cathal Dennehy, the squeeze looks like Jakob’s current move for the 1500m. He accelerated continually over the second half of the race, with each 100m split becoming progressively quicker.

Everyone competing in the 400m is ‘Doomed’

Alexander Doom is on an absolute tear right now, and seems to be lowering his PR every time he runs an individual 400m. Winning European gold in 44.15 highlights a massive progression for the Belgian. He came into the year having run sub-45 only once before, with a 44.92 during the heats in Budapest last year. A sub-44 clocking come Paris would not be a surprise, and he leaves Rome having set himself up as a likely medallist in Paris.

On the women’s side, Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek gave the world a sub-49 clocking for the third time in three days with 48.98 following the craziness in New York and at NCAAs. Given we didn’t see a single sub-49 run for nearly nine years between August 2009 and July 2018, we are being treated to a halcyon period in the 400m right now. Rhasidat Adeleke came second in 49.07 after leading Ireland to an historic mixed 4x4 relay gold. She broke Lieke Klaver through a crazy first 200m on her leg, which left Femke Bol with way too much to do on anchor. Special mention to the significant contingent of Irish fans who were some of the most visible in the stadium and were rewarded for their dedication.

Was it a jumps runway or was it a trampoline?

The horizontal jumps in Rome were on whole another level (both literally and figuratively). Miltiadis Tentoglou jumped 8.65m twice for the world lead. Malaika Mihambo confirmed she was back with a 7.22m world lead, and not ready to give up her Olympic title. There were a crazy number of PRs, NRs and a whole alphabet soup of letters in the results for every event, including the multi-event jumpers.

There was definitely something special about the runways, which were on a raised platform about 6m above track level. I suspect there might be a host of jumpers campaigning for the raised platform to be moved from Rome to Paris in a few weeks time. We’ll have to see what these athletes jump at other events in the coming weeks to see whether Rome is now the Ramona of the jumps. Nonetheless this was certainly a great shot in the arm for a group of events that are arguably overlooked by many.

To add to the drama there was some beef, as former Cubans, and former training partners Pedro Pichardo (Portugal) and Jordan Diaz Fortun (Spain) battled it out for the triple jump crown. Pedro Pichardo jumped 18.04, the thirteenth farthest jump in history, only to be overshadowed by a humongous 18.18 jump by Diaz Fortun. We’ll let the drama speak for itself with these images from the athletes’ Instagram accounts, but this definitely adds some spice to the event going into Paris.

Other key takeaways

Nafi Thiam is coming back for her crown in the heptathlon, looking close to her best and running a PR in the 800m, which, to put fear into her competitors, was previously her weakest event.

Keely Hodgkinson proves you can still win when you’re sick, managing to hold on in the 800m after only deciding to run in the call room just before.

The controversial British selection policy didn’t quite pay off on this occasion with a number of their gold medal hopefuls missing out. The GB contingent came home with only 13 medals, compared to 20 in 2022 and 18 in 2018. Meanwhile a number of field eventers who were left at home would have made finals and were likely top-eight finishers based on their performances on the circuit this season.

Mondo is still Mondo, jumping an easy 6.10m, though he wasn’t quite able to get over 6.25m for the latest WR mark which he has been attempting in his last few competitions.