Jacobs, Tamberi and that happy hug that unites Italy

Let’s try. Let’s make an effort. We must mark it well in our memory this Sunday, August 1, 2021. We must mark it well. So that when we are depressed or in a bad mood, when everything seems to row against us, we can turn the light back on in an instant and be happy.

Simply happy, without contraindications, arguments, or behavioral scruples. Happy as Gimbo Tamberi, who after having touched the sky in the high jump, when he realizes that Marcell Jacobs was also faster than the wind in the final of the hundred meters, embraces him as he does with a brother who has returned from a long journey. and they had given it up for lost. He kisses it, hugs it, wraps it in the Italian flag. It is pure joy, shared happiness, the ultimate meaning of the Great Beauty of sport. That in very rare cases, such as on this Olympic day, it achieves the miracle of bringing everything together behind the wonder of a jump that flies into the sky of Tokyo and a race that is consumed in a flash, in the space of 9 “. and 80 cents.

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You do not have time to hear the shot that you are already one step from the finish line. A flash in which, however, everyone understands that this boy born in Texas but raised on Lake Garda, has left the sacred monsters of speed behind. A sensational event because Italy, at the Olympic Games, not only had never won a gold medal in the hundred meters, but had not even participated in a final in the specialty of the great American or Jamaican stars.

Jacobs, it seems like a miracle, reaches this milestone after Usain Bolt’s three times – and this reference would be enough to close any discussion. But there will be time to make comparisons and make tables. And understand who really is the greatest. What they like, that chains the heart of this extraordinary Olympic gold bracelet, consumed in half an hour, is its absolute authenticity. The overwhelming force with which he struck us on our numb Sunday sofas.

Let’s face it: the blue one, at the height of this double magic, seemed like a good expedition, with many good athletes, but not very good, strong, but not very strong. There was so much Olympic spirit, so much good seed of a nation that, despite a year and a half of pandemic, it had managed to bring its best youth to Tokyo. There was all this, okay, but the big business was missing. And instead, after so much suffering, after so many golds lost due to a mustache, there came a crash that made us all jump as if to equalize the Eurocup.