An emotional, shared gold
Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi celebrated exuberantly, and emotionally, despite the absence of spectators at the Games. Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim said he was in dreamland. The two shared a rare Olympic athletics gold in the high jump on Sunday.
When Barshim finished level with Tamberi at 2.37 metres, facing a potential jump-off to decide the gold medal, he calmly asked the official: “Can we have two golds?”
The official nodded, both athletes hugged each other and whooped with joy before breaking off into celebratory circuits of the stadium.
The long-haired Tamberi, who broke his ankle days before the 2016 Rio Games which has seen him perform in a plaster cast, hugged everyone he could find on the track. Draped in an Italian flag, he was also the first to embrace Lamont Marcell Jacobs after his 100m win.
Tamberi is the second Italian to win gold in the high jump after Sara Simeoni won the women’s competition in Moscow in 1980. He added Olympic gold to a world indoor and a European title, both in 2016
“This is a bit of history that will stay with me forever. I will tell my kids, if I have them. I will never sleep again,” he said. “After the injury I spent a week crying, and then one day I decided to try again.
“... now I have this gold, it’s incredible,” Tamberi said. “I dreamed of this so many times. I was told in 2016, just before Rio, there was a risk I wouldn’t be able to compete any more. It’s been a long journey.”
Barshim completes full house of medals
For Barshim, 30, it completes a full house of Olympic medals having taken bronze in London in 2012 and silver in Rio five years ago.
Barshim missed a large part of 2018 with a serious ankle injury, bouncing back to win world outdoor gold on home soil in 2019.
“This is a dream I don’t want to wake up from,” he said. “I have been through a lot. It’s been five years that I have been waiting, with injuries and a lot of setbacks.
“But we are here today sharing this moment and all the sacrifices. It’s really worth it now in this moment.”
A couple of thousand spectators, mostly made up of other athletes and officials, created some buzz at the Olympic Stadium on the third evening of athletics.