Óscar Husillos serves the duel with Warholm
MADRID, 3 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish athlete Jesús Gómez was left at the gates of the medal this Friday in the 1,500-meter indoor European event that is taking place in Istanbul, with a fourth place, while Marta Pérez and Jaël-Sakura Bestué also achieved positions in European finalists.
In his third consecutive European final (in three participations), Gómez was looking for his third medal, after two bronzes. The man from Burgos overcame a rough start in which he almost went to the ground, although losing important cartridges. Jakob Ingebrigtsen set the pace and broke the race, but the Spaniard entered the leading group along with Briton Neil Gourley and Frenchman Azeddine Habz.
In the last two laps, Gómez saw his chances of defending the bronze from two years ago in Torun (Poland) vanish. Ingebrigtsen, world record holder and Olympic champion, gave him no choice and defended her title with 3: 33.95, a championship record, ahead of a Gourley who tried the bell without success and Habz.
Meanwhile, in the 3,000 final, Hanna Klein followed in the wake of her compatriot Konstanze Klosterhalfen and took gold on the last lap. The Germans broke the race along with the British Courtney-Bryant, who took bronze, with another battle from behind with the two Spaniards.
Marta Pérez signed a creditable seventh position (8:49.19), finalist, and further back Marta García (in her first European final) entered tenth with 8:54.92. With this, Pérez chains three finalist places in the last three Europeans on the indoor track.
In addition, Bestué made history by being the first Spanish finalist in the 60 m of a European, among the best on the continent and advancing from the three races he contested on Friday. The Catalan started with 7.30, two hundredths better than Sandra Myers in 1988 as the fastest Spanish indoor.
In the afternoon, in the second semifinal, Bestué finished with 7.23 (improving the all-time record for the series) to enter the grand final by times. From street 1, the young Spanish athlete had to settle for being eighth (7.28), in a European confirmation at an absolute level to think big in the summer World Cup.
On the other hand, in the men’s 400 meter semifinals, the current European champion, Óscar Husillos, made it to his third consecutive final. The man from Palencia had the world star Karsten Warholm as a reference and a nice fight with the Belgian Julien Watrin, giving everything in the final stretch, to pass third.