It was the night of nights at the stadium. On the track in Budapest, and the night is even more humid than the day, as if the Danube kept the heat and wanted to boil alone under the moon, Femke Bol, a young Dutch girl with a baby face and braids, flies over 10 hurdles and laps the track in 51.70s; On the way to Usain Bolt’s record, Noah Lyles, as usual, does the barbarian (19.76s) in the semifinals of the half lap of the track, 200m, in which Sha’Carri Richardson, as usual, fell asleep for a while. for a while before accelerating like a clueless woman who realizes late that she has missed the train; the Greek Miltiades Tentoglou, Olympic champion does a Pedroso and, with a sixth jump of 8.52m, overcomes the 8.50m of the Jamaican phenomenon Wayne Pinnock what an accelerated step rate reaching the killer board that made his friend and compatriot slip before Carey McLeod, gliding head first over sand, to win her first World Cup; Mo Katir smiles at the press, recites his three C’s, his three great values, inspired by his countryman Carlos Alcaraz, heart, head and balls”, and greets after becoming, along with Ouassim Oumaiz from Nerja from Malaga, one of the 17 finalists of the 5,000m on Sunday (20.10); and the boy from Torrelavega Mohamed Attaoui explodes at the time, he runs better and faster than ever (1m 44.35s, fifth best Spanish time ever), but, like Saúl Ordóñez, he just missed out on the most difficult final to reach, the 800m, even more difficult than finding a free taxi on a rainy afternoon in Seville, as Kevin López said, who was left at the gates a few times, maximum frustration.
And, as if that were not enough, the genius of the prodigious Adrián Ben, master of rhythm and the 800m, shone more than anything else.
After running like never before (1m 43.95s: the fourth Spaniard who in history descends below the 44th minute barrier in the two laps of the track), and qualifying as always for the final (Saturday, 8:30 p.m.), and he did so, the second Spaniard to achieve it in history, after Tomás de Teresa, in the 2019 World Cup in Doha and in the 2021 Rio Games, the Galician from Viveiro, like the great storytellers, was able to recount his thoughts, his dreams, his wishes, your love, in 7m 38s before the recorders of the journalists happy to hear the happiness of the 25-year-old athlete who just turned 25, who in March, in Istanbul, was the European indoor champion.
A stream of emotion and sweat summarized in 1,620 words. Super Saiyan, the hero of Dragon Ball, Turned into a lanky, blond and talkative athlete, Ben, fifth in Tokyo, sixth in Doha, thus tells what the wise men of the middle distance summarize in one sentence: how clever Adrián Ben, how he has entered inside!: “Well, we have passed The 400, I think, in 48s, 49s, they will have passed, I will have passed in 50s. And, nothing, I have tried, well, what I have done all season. Behind, without spending, on street one. I was just looking at Kramer [veterano sueco, un seguro] And I didn’t think anything else. She just said, run, run, run, run, I haven’t looked at my 500 pace, my 600 pace, nothing. I have seen that people moved, that they began to slow down, and I still had legs. I tried to move a little, but I didn’t want to go down calle 3. I have kept behind Barontini [italiano]. I have tried to go inside, and I have reached 100 saying, look, I am complete, I can spend what I need. And I’ve seen that Hoppel [estadounidense] y Wanonyoi [keniano] they were leaving, that Wanyonyi opened up a little… And there was a moment when I hesitated, with 60, 50 to go, when I said, wait, I don’t have room to pass and I’m staying here like a fool. But well, I have seen that in the end Hoppel opened up, and he could have gone through the middle or inside as I tried. And 1.43, damn it, sorry. Everything, I don’t know what to say, it seems like a story, I don’t know, it seems like a movie. They record me, as they say now, right? They are recording me.”
In the final on Saturday there will be a mature Adrián Ben, polished by the Moratalaz coach Arturo Martín, a master in the art of making his athletes reach 100 percent on D-day at H hour. And his head is so well placed, always inspired , as Noah Lyles, in the manga, in Super Saiyan and in One Piece, your favorite series “This is very different from my first final, in Doha 2019. I was a kid then [21 años recién cumplidos] in his first absolute internationality as who says, ”he says. “And now I am here. And in One Piece there is an image, a phrase, that I have repeated a million times. I don’t know if anyone here sees it, but they say that a person who wants to be a world champion cannot be afraid of a semifinal. I want to dream big, I want to achieve big things.”
You can follow EL PAÍS Sports on Facebook y Twitterpoint here to receive our weekly newsletter.
