Athletics World Championships: Fantini, fourth place for a piece of history

From our correspondent Andrea Buongiovanni

@abuongi

July 18
– EUGENE (United States)

Fly Sara Fantini’s hammer, not Nick Ponzio’s weight. This is, in extreme synthesis, the meaning of the third blue day of Eugene 2022. The 24-year-old from Faenza, fourth with 73.18 (at 1.66 from that caressed podium for almost half the race), achieves the best result of an Italian thrower in eighteen editions of the World Cup. Zahra Bani, in the javelin, was fifth in Helsinki 2005. For those who, this season, has improved the Italian record four times, up to the great 75.77 in June in Madrid, it is a sort of consecration. And it bodes very well in view of the European Championships in Munich, where Marinella Vaccari’s pupil will present herself with the best size of the lot of the participants. For the daughter of art who is a literary student, the leap in quality is enormous.

Pontius ninth

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Ponzio is not in the day and he is also a bit unlucky. After a 20.28, on the second roll he rolls 20.81. The third is called an unjustified null. The blue, eighth in the partial classification and therefore last admitted to the second part of the race, asks that the attempt be measured in any case. It is the turn of New Zealander Gill: 20.82. Overtaking. For an inch. The measurement arrives in the meantime: 20.76. It is not enough. Nick is ninth and disappointed.

Four eliminated

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Little glory for the other four blues in the race. Edo Scotti (46 ”46), Davide Re (46” 49) and Alice Mangione (52 ”72), respectively 29th, 31st and 34th, are eliminated in the first round of the 400 (not without justifications). Zaynab Dosso, in the 100, surrenders in the semifinal: 11 ”28 (+0.4), seventh in his bateria, 21st in total.