Jakob Ingebrigtsen, for his tenth title | Sports

The Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen, this Thursday in the 1,500 meter classification.
The Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen, this Thursday in the 1,500 meter classification.OZAN ​​KOSE (AFP)

It is a study of physiologists, who know him very well, the relationship between Jakob Ingebrigtsen and lactic acid, which does not rise above 4.5 millimoles when training in long outings, is science and he is a very long and stubborn boy who half an hour before From the first of four races that await him in his four Turkish days, the 1,500m semi-final, he runs around the pavilion in the cold, dark Istanbul night, leaping up stairs and sidewalks. He is the star of the European track, where stars also shine indoors, at the age of 22 nine times European champion, in all distances (1,500m, 3,000m, 5,000m) and surfaces, outdoors, indoor track and cross . He will come out of the European Championship in Istanbul, probably with two more victories, in the 1,500m, where the opposition is Scottish and his name is Neil Gourley, and in the 3,000m, where Adel Mechaal awaits him, happy and sad in his city.

In the semifinal, the phenomenal Norwegian, even more work than talent, which is a lot, did not worry about the lactic acid in his ear or his rivals in the first 1,100 meters, who ran behind everyone. He accelerated a bit, and headed towards the final of what may be his tenth European title (and he is also the 1,500m Olympic champion and 5,000m World Champion) in which (today, 6:40 p.m.), Ignacio Fontes eliminated, only one of the two will be registered Spaniards, Jesús Gómez from Burgos (little black bow on his chest, memory of physio Ángel Basas, who died in an accident, “the person who has helped me the most all year that I have been injured,” he says). “Everybody talks about Ingebrigtsen, but I don’t know, I haven’t seen him as fresh, perhaps because he thinks that he also has two 3,000m races and doesn’t want to waste a lot of bullets,” says Gómez, bronze medalist in the last two European Championships in indoor track, 2019 and 2021, and in one, that of 2019, he attended the last defeat of the Norwegian, silver back then behind the Pole Marcin Lewandowski. “And Gourley is running a lot this winter… I come without stress, to enjoy the championship after a year in which, injured, I lost winter and summer.” At 31, Gómez feels that, and says it jokingly, he has already finished “the military”. He has stopped training with the military commander Benjamín Álvarez, and his discipline, to do it with the civilian Raúl Gutiérrez.

In another final, in the women’s 3,000m, there will be Spanish athletes today. Marta Pérez, from Soriana who trains in Madrid with Antonio Serrano, Adel Mechaal’s coach, and Marta García, from Leon who trains in Valladolid with Uriel Reguero, like the middle-distance runner Lorea Ibarzabal, qualified in the semifinals in which the < NO1>greatfavourite, the German Konstanze Kloterhalfen, together with her compatriot Hanna Klein, had a hard time going slowly, and in which the Turkish Emine Hatum, wife of Mechaal, also qualified.

About 10 years ago, when she was a talented youth with a good future, her coach gave Lorea Ibarzabal a bib for the Spanish team. She, says her mother, former athlete and milera Patricia Padorno, kept it in a drawer and said that as long as he didn’t make it to the national team she would never wear it, and that, of course, one day he would become international with Spain. . At the age of 28, the athlete from Madrid, although born in the Canary Islands in Las Palmas, finally makes her debut, and, her mother continues, she does it very emotional, and so emotional, she adds through tears after qualifying for the 800m semifinal (tomorrow , 17.15). “But my tears are because I remember my friend Bea, who today would have been her birthday. She died four months ago, ”says the middle-distance runner who has made a great leap in quality this winter and achieved her lifetime mark, 2m 1s. “And I left overwhelmed so as not to fail her. And between the two of us we’ve had a great race”. The Mallorcan Daniela García did not advance to the semifinals, nor did Saúl Ordóñez, the best Spaniard in the 800m this winter, who has been ill all week, in the men’s category.

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