FROM THE ENVIRONMENT TO MONACO. «Giupponistyle» is a label, a hashtag, a definition and now also a medal, a bronze in the 35 km walk which is the first podium in the European Championships in which Italy wants to count.
Matteo Giupponi finishes third in 2h30’34 and the Azzurri start again from where they left off, the same distance in which Massimo Stano hit the gold and confirmed his name in the USA. This is how the Settlement World Cup ended and from there we start again, as if we had never stopped, as if the road was the same for our local athletics: a long endless season that goes from Tokyo to Paris, from 2021 wonders to a 2024 to be built, to be climbed.
For the next level Giupponi’s face is perfect, a “giupponistyle” or one who waits for a result all his life, who at the best of his ability becomes an Olympic finalist, in the first in Brazil, in 2016, only to freeze due to a mangy injury who seems to never give up and insists. Even as her boyfriend, in the role of Eleonora Giorgi’s slightly less titled companion, now on maternity leave: «Dedicated to her and to the baby to come, we are waiting for him between the end of November and the beginning of December. I dreamed and chased this moment for many years, after Rio the tendon injury tormented me, it took forever to get out of it but I always believed in it and so did the people around me. So I have a thought for all those who have been there and also thanks to the barracks that hosted me ». The style is also here.
Miguel Ángel López wins (2h26’49) who also stops to embrace the coach at the last kilometer, with a margin of 2 minutes and 41 seconds on the second, the German Christopher Linke. Giupponi arrives and puts the garland of tricolor flowers around his neck, just before hugging Eleonora, being so between medal, love and baby bump (in no particular order) to rock his future.