Tamberi and Jacobs the difficult management of athletics stars – Corriere.it

We won for the first time in our long history (58 years) a European athletics team with a superb collective performance: running, jumping, throwing, men and women. But once the celebrations are over, in a national team that is much more solid and mature than that of Tokyo, the utterances and silences of the two Japanese heroes still take center stage: the great absent Jacobs, the very present Tamberi.

Back on the platform after ten months, Gimbo came close to 2.32 (Never so good at the beginning of the season) and explained that the transfer of coach from my father to Giulio Ciotti was perfect, I’m in monstrous shape and from here to Paris via Budapest I want to rock the world. On the outburst for the missed invitations to the Golden Gala, no step backwards, yesterday at the airport: Words due to my audience: I had never missed that meeting. They didn’t want to hire me? They could have invited me to cheer: I’m the blue captain. I’m still waiting for a phone call in which President Mei explains why.

The organizers (the Federation) felt that the salary requested by Tamberi (60,000 euros against the 30,000 proposed) was excessive compared to the possible technical result, eroding too much the budget reserved for big foreign players. Strategy perhaps functional to the technical quality of the event (Kipyegon’s world championship in the 1,500m), ungenerous towards the public that Tamberi, savior and ambassador of blue athletics for five years, fascinates like few others.

Then there’s Jacobs, in silence-social against unidentified haters, who comes and goes from Germany where the 80-year-old physiatry guru Mueller-Wolfarth cures his silky muscles. No precise diagnosis, mystery about recovery times and return to racing. The Italian Olympian of the 100m and the 4x100m relay finds itself with a sprint in trouble: Desalu ironed 10 minutes before the Polish 4×100 (a classic by now in the blue relay), Tortu ran the 200m in a worrying 20″61, Ceccarelli was very good but his 10″13 was the 93rd time of the year with the English Hughes (absent in Poland) leader with 30 cents in less. With the 38″38 from Florence, third from last among the provisional qualifiers, we are at risk of exclusion and to secure the trip, Fidal is thinking of a blitz at the Warsaw meeting on 9 July, with which sprinters and in what state of health not given to know.

A national team that has never been so strong and so compact deserves more at management level. For example, the awaited clarifying phone call from President Mei to Tamberi to cancel the unpleasant sentence Gimbo is just one of many on the list of athletes not invited to the Golden Gala, his words tarnish the victory pronounced on Sunday. And a chat with Marcell Jacobs’ staff reassures the champion from Brescia: nobody is angry with him, to be more open with the press and the public but also with the federal technicians there is only something to gain.