I know, I know; I have used the "stop the presses" title when Tentoglou won the olympic title in 2021 and, again, in 2023 when he became world champion. But what he did yesterday in Rome was so impressive that I felt that I had to announce it immediately.
Tentoglou arrived in Rome for the Europeans having competed just three times outdoors, in May. First in Doha, where he lost to McLeod 8.52 m (with a +5.2 m/s wind) to 8.36 m (wind at 1.9 m/s), then Cyprus (8.25 m with +0.3 wind) and a victory in the Balkan championships with 8.17 m (-4.0 m/s wind). The European athletics site indicated M. Furlani as having the European leading performance (!) with 8.36 m.
The qualifiers were held in the morning of June 7th, and Tentoglou jumped just once, with 8.14 m, clearing the qualification standard of 8 m. The star of the qualifiers was S. Ehammer who jumped a world leading performance (under regular conditions) of 8.41 m. One would thus expect a fierce fight between Tentoglou, Ehammer and Furlani. Well, that was not to be.
Miltos started his competition with a world leading 8.42 m jump. It is funny that you could see in his face that he was not happy with that performance. Still he could have won the competition with just this jump. Furlani riposted with a World U20 record of 8.38 m, which was going to be his best result. Ehammer started with a so-so 7.96 which he improved to 8.31 m at his third attempt. Tentoglou had a barely fouled second attempt at around 8.50 and he went on to jump 8.49 and 8.45 m at his third and fourth attempts.
And then came the great jumps. On his fifth attempt he jumped a championships record (the previous one was his with 8.52 m from 2022), world leading 8.65 m (with a -0.3 m/s wind). But, still, Miltos was not quit satisfied. After all, 8.65 m is one cm shy of the greek national record. So he went all out in is sixth attempt and one could see his disappointment when that jump turned out to be also 8.65 m! The journalists (I was following the event on the greek tv) were saying that his objective was a 8.70 m jump. Well, he will have the occasion to go for it in the Paris Olympics.
Tentoglou is just 26 years old. He started being noticed at a national level when he jumped 7.73 m, being just 17. He was already over 8 m the next year and in 2017 he won the national championships with 8.30 m and the European U20 title. In 2018 he won his first "senior" title during the Berlin Europeans. In 2019 he was European indoors champion and won the U23 European title. The year 2021 started with another European indoors title and was followed by a great personal best of 8.60 m, during a meeting in Greece. In my first "stop the presses" article you can find all the details of his battle for the olympic gold during the Tokyo Games. A world indoors title in 2022 was followed by a rare defeat during world championships, but he rebounded to win the European outdoors title with what was up to yesterday the championships record of 8.52 m. In 2023 he started by winning the European Indoors and obtained his first world (outdoors) champion title in Budapest (you can find the details in the second "stop the presses" article). This year started with a not-so-easy win over Furlani and McLeod at the world indoors and segued with his impressive performance in Rome. I don't think that any other jumper comes even close to the feats of Tentoglou.
We are less than two months away from the Paris Olympics. Till now, nobody except for King Carl has won more than one olympic title in the men's long jump. Having seen in Rome what Miltos can do it is clear that he can go for a second olympic title. But, independently of this, it is clear that Tentoglou is now the best long jumper in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment