Shared Olympic gold moment unrepeatable, says Barshim

PARIS: Two athletes sharing Olympic gold in a near-empty stadium in Tokyo caught the imagination of an expectant audience across the world, which was at the time ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mutaz Ezza Barshim embraced his old friend Gianmarco Tamberi at the end of the men’s high jump as the judges confirmed the double gold for the Qatari and the Italian who have known each other for years dating back to competing as youths.

“To be honest, it will never happen again,” Barshim told AFP in an interview.

“That moment, we’ll never share that again. It was a one-time thing. Coming back from injuries and a dark place, I wanted to do something different, something with a different meaning.

“I’m glad it touched so many people’s hearts, but we are sportspeople, we are professionals, we always want to be the best, we have that fire, ‘I want to beat you, you want to beat me’.”

Barshim said he felt “lucky” to have shared the gold with Tamberi.

“We’ve been competing since 2010 and came to pro level together,” he explained.

“As professional athletes we deal with a lot. There’s one thing which is the biggest thing and that is injury. In 2018, I injured my let Achilles, broke both my ligaments and it was a very dark time for me, mentally and physically.

“One second you are the best and a few moments later you’re on a wheelchair and they’re dragging you out of the surgery room.

“Gianmarco, my friend, had a similar injury in 2016 just before the Rio Olympics which prevented him from being there.

“When the bar was 2.37 metres in Tokyo and me and him cleared at the first atempt, we looked back and there was no one let, it was emotional. So it was a tie.

“I asked ‘can we share?’. The reply was ‘yeah it’s possible’ and that was it! We didn’t even discuss things. I looked at Gianmarco’s eyes, he looked at me, we jumped, we hugged and the rest is history, that’s one of the moments that will stick forever.”

Barshim joked that World Athletics plans to award every event winner prize money of $50,000 (46,000 euros) would also guarantee no further shared gold.

“It’s not happening, 50 or 500, no sharing!” said the 32-year-old, who also has three world outdoor titles to his name.