World Athletics Championships: The latest news and analysis from Budapest 2023
Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi and Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim were part of one of the best moments of the Tokyo Olympics. But they won’t be repeating the shared gold at the World Athletics Championships.
Remember the two high-jumpers who provided one of the most memorable moments of the Tokyo Olympics when they shared the gold medal?
Well, they’re still mates but there won’t be a repeat of that amazing act of generosity between them again in Budapest.
Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi and Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim are still basking in the glory of the moment but have agreed they would adopt a different strategy next time.
In the Tokyo Olympic final both cleared 2.37m and with neither able to make 2.39m, officials offered a jump-off but Barshim famously asked: “Can we have two golds?”
The result was the first athletics joint podium in more than a century.
It was an easy decision at the time given they’d been friends for more than a decade with Taberi attending Barshim’s wedding.
“We looked at each other, and we didn’t even think about what was correct to do in that moment. There was a feeling pushing us to do it. We did it,” Tamberi revealed last year.
“We are great friends and In that moment with a friend, you can’t have another decision and people see, felt that there was something true behind that. So that’s why everybody was so entertained by that moment because it really looked like a really true moment and that’s what it was for us.”
But they have both agreed should the same circumstances get thrust on them again, they’d go with the jump-off.
“For myself, I will never go back in the past and change what we have done. We will forever be remembered as brothers . . . friends,” Tamberi said.
“We both won because we both deserved that gold medal. When they ask us will you share again we say ‘no’ because we have done it once.
“But it does not mean we are not proud of it. I will never change the past even if you paid me or guaranteed me that I will be the one who wins that gold medal, I will share with him because I know he deserves, I know I deserve.”
Barshim, 32, is shooting for an incredible fourth consecutive world title in Budapest and comes into the championships as the No.1 ranked jumper for the year after clearing 2.36m at last month’s Silesia Diamond League meet.
As usual Tamberi, 31, is not far away from his friend and is ranked No.4 in the world.
Both had no issues during Sunday’s qualifying where they cleared 2.28m and will be joined in the final (4am Wednesday AEST) by Australia’s Brandon Starc.
Double disaster: Stars collapse 5 metres from gold
It was a double Dutch disaster on the opening night of the world championships.
In the space of 15 minutes the Netherlands went from looking like having two certain gold medals to finishing with nothing.
In the women’s 10,000m Sifan Hassan fell 20 metres from the finish line when she was leading and trying to fight off a challenge from eventual winner Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay.
Then in the next event, the 4x400m mixed relay, the Dutch were again leading in the shadows of the post before the country’s other big star Femke Bol stumbled only metres from the finish line and dropped the baton.
It was heartbreaking stuff for the orange brigade who had been lbanking on Hassan capturing an extraordinary three gold medals at these championships.
The 30-year-old has been trying to win the 10,000m, 5000m and 1500m, a feat she attempted two years ago at the Tokyo Olympics.
On that occasion she came up short in the 1500m by winning bronze while taking gold in the 5000m and 10,000m.
Hassan had cruised through the heats of the 1500m earlier in the day before her dramatic fall in the 10,000m which paved the way for an Ethiopian trifecta.
Tsegay finished in 31min27.18sec to defeat world-record holder Letesenbet Gidey with Ejgayehu Taye third.
In the mixed relay Bol was trying to hold off a late surge from American Alexis Holmes when she slipped and face planted onto the tartan track.
“I don’t know what happened, I cramped towards the finish line, I was pushing, pushing, pushing,” Bol said.
“I was disappointed that my body did not have it in to finish the race strongly. I’m sorry for my team, I should have finished it off and it sucks big time.”
The American quartet of Justin Robinson, Rosey Effiong, Matthew Boling and Alexis Holmes came home in a new world record time of 3min:08.80sec ahead of Great Britain and the Czech Republic.
SLIP UP THAT ALMOST ENDED COMP
For a fleeting moment Matthew Denny thought his world championships was over.
Australia‘s discus throw champion was staring down the barrel of a qualifying round exit given he needed a throw of over 64 metres on his last attempt to make the final.
Halfway through his final throw Denny felt his foot slip which normally spells trouble but the big Queenslander managed to correct it enough to heave the discus 64.29m to make it through to his third consecutive world championships final (4.30am Tuesday AEST).
“The way it played out, the first throw was a terrible release and I didn‘t get a hold of it,” Denny said.
“The second one I missed it on the toe and it had a pretty shocking flight. So then with the last one as I am winding up through the throw, essentially going through my turn I just feel it (foot) go.
“We have to walk on the grass and then back through and I still had water on my feet, I thought I had dried it off.
“The heart dropped and I was like I have to give this something on the delivery otherwise it is going nowhere, fortunately I got it and it stayed in.
“Usually when I slip like that I fall out the front (of the circle) so it was a bit of a last chance effort.”
Denny has been one of Australia‘s most consistent major championships performers of recent times, finishing fourth at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and sixth at the past two world championships.
Despite the close shave in qualifying, the 27-year-old is confident he can produce something special in the final.
“I am in killer form, today was just a bit all over the shop,” he said. ”It was welcome back to qualifying and the weirdness of major championship qualifying for field events.
“I learnt my lesson and then got settled. It‘s not the first time I have done it although I prefer it to be in the final on the last throw not if you miss this you’re going to be pretty frustrated for a long time
“I thought it was still comfortable and if I didn‘t slip there would have been less heart drop to the floor kind of feeling. You learn your lessons and feel more comfortable in those situations.”
Australia did lose another of its most consistent big-time performers in the women‘s long jump with Brooke Buschkuehl, who finished seventh at last year’s world titles, crashing out of qualifying with her best leap of 6.55m, six centimetres shy of the required mark.
SILVER FOR AUSSIE STAR
With each lap of the world championships 20km walk the bracelet around Jemima Montag‘s wrist would remind her that the pain she was feeling was nothing like what her family had gone through to allow her to have this moment.
The bracelet was a gift from her beloved late grandmother, Judith, a holocaust survivor from Auschwitz, and played a crucial part in the Victorian improving from fourth at last year‘s world championships to the silver medal position in Budapest.
“I feel especially close to her being in a country where a lot of Holocaust survivors came and were involved in,” Montag said. ”She fled to Paris after the war and then came to Melbourne but we lost her just before the Tokyo Olympics.
“So it‘s been a couple of years now but this bracelet when it moves up and down my arm, it’s just a direct, like physical reminder each lap that yes, this is hard, but what she went through you can’t even compare.
“Nana and my grandpa went through indescribable torture for years to give my Dad and then me an opportunity to give this life a crack.
“And I want to give it a crack. I don‘t want to settle for fourth again like last year, I wanted to see what I could hold on to. So yeah, she plays a role.”
The 25-year-old Victorian had stayed in the lead pack around Budapest‘s famous Heroes Square - the course was a continuous 1km loop - before making her move at the 15km mark with eventual winner, Spain’s Maria Perez.
As she surged away a line she‘d written in her journal before she won her first Commonwealth title back in 2018 came into her mind.
“I've learnt from the last few world champs and the Olympics that when that move is made at about 15k, it’s the winning move,” Montag said.
“The last three majors I haven't had the training evidence or the self belief, or the technical backing to go with it. This year our prep has been watertight, we’ve gone places we haven’t gone before in training.
“Speaking to my psych over the last few days, the idea was to just be willing to go for it. Be willing to hurt in that last 5k, it's not going to feel easy.
“I remembered a little line that I wrote in my journal before my Comm Games gold in 2018, it was: `Half an hour of courage for a lifetime of pride‘. That just flowed out of my head and I had that playing today.”
Montag had the Australian flag draped over her shoulder as she crossed the finish line in a new Australian record time of 1hr27.16sec - 25 seconds behind Perez.
A red card earlier in the race meant she quickly shelved any ideas of winning gold, instead focusing on the silver which won by 10 seconds from Italy’s Antonella Palmisano.
“I didn't really have any intention of challenging her (Perez), I knew I was on one red card so it’s smarter to lock in silver and keep that distance back to bronze than to worry about challenging for gold and potentially get disqualified,” Montag said.
“I knew they were hurting. We spent an hour together in that pack and I could see them picking up every sponge, I could hear them panting and I knew that I was feeling comfier than them.
“I felt like I had another gear, so did Maria while the others were sort of holding on when we were in that pack. My coach (Brent Vallance) was reinforcing that idea from what he could see.
“So I thought let’s use her (Perez) as a bit of a getaway car and try and put some distance on the rest.”
The last Australian female walker to medal at the world championships was Kerry Saxby-Junna who claimed bronze in Seville in 1999. She also won a silver medal in the 10km event at the 1987 Rome world championships.
Montag‘s career has been on a gradual climb to this Budapest moment after she finished 10th at her major championships debut at the 2019 Doha world titles.
Two years later at the Tokyo Olympics she finished a stunning sixth in the oppressive Japanese heat in Sapporo.
In 2022 she broke Jane Saville‘s 18-year-old 20km walk record in February before then going on to finish fourth at the world championships in Eugene. Her second Commonwealth crown followed three weeks later in Birmingham.
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