María Pérez, Mariano García and Sara Gallego, best assets of a Spanish team with a passion for competition
MADRID, 14 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Outdoor Athletics World Championship kicks off this Friday, July 15, in the US city of Eugene, where Spain will appeal to a young and ambitious team to add to the medal table, pulling hard and with running as a great asset, in an event that It will feature the most stars and Olympic champions from the 49 disciplines.
The event, the most important since the Tokyo Games last summer, will take place at the historic and renovated Hayward Field, the stadium of the University of Oregon with a small capacity of 12,600 people. Thus, the United States will host a World Cup for the first time from Friday until July 24 – it has not organized a major outdoor athletics event since the 96 Atlanta Games -, marked by the absence of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
The Spanish team travels to Eugene with the hope of continuing to grow, guaranteeing passion and effort as it is used to in recent big events. Despite going with a team inexperienced due to their youth – more than half of the expedition is facing their first World Cup – most arrive very in tune and could cause an upset at Hayward Field.
The Spanish team does not want to return from Eugene without a medal, as happened in London 2017. To do so, it hides behind a team without great leaders and the more than 90 Spanish records broken so far in 2022. María Pérez, Sara Gallego, Álvaro de Arriba, Mariano García, along with experienced athletes such as Adel Mechaal, Javier Cienfuegos -athlete with the most international appearances (39)- or Marc Tur, are some of the names of the team.
Spain comes to Eugene with the sensitive absences of Orlando Ortega, weighed down by injury, Ana Peleteiro, pregnant; both with serious medal options; and Jordan Díaz, recently nationalized and with the best world record of the year in triple jump (17.87), so the march will be one of the most favorable alternatives. Thus, the Spanish team, with an expedition of 56 athletes -18 more than in the last edition and the same number as in London 2017; the third highest number in history – will try to equal and even surpass the 11 finalists of the last Games.
The Granada-born María Pérez, European champion, represents one of the most consistent possibilities in the 20 km walk when she reached the final of the test as the second fastest woman in the world this year (1:27:40). Also in this distance, the Spaniards Álvaro Martín and Diego García, fourth and sixth in Tokyo, respectively, will try to fight for medals in Eugene, with the Japanese Koki Ikeda and Toshikazu Yamanishi as favorites, since the Olympic champion Massimo Stano will try in the 35km
The 35 km walk will also be an opportunity for Miguel Ángel López, world champion of 20 km in Beijing 2015 and bronze in Moscow 2013 and fourth favorite running under 2 hours and 28 minutes, and he already knows what it means to get on the podium this year, after finishing third in the World Team Championships in Muscat in March. He will be joined by an experienced Marc Tur with much more limited options.
Without the marathon team as one of the great novelties, with the European also on the horizon, the 400 meters hurdles seem like another attractive alternative for the Spanish fan. Sara Gallego arrives at the World Cup after destroying her Spanish record (54.34) at the Spanish Championships in Nerja, a time that allows her to compete in Eugene as the tenth best athlete in the world and third in Europe in a test that will have the American Sydney McLaughlin as dominator (51.41).
He will also participate in the mixed 4×400 as the absolute record holder for Spain on the indoor track (3:18.90 in 2022), the best world record in a test in which Óscar Husillos, Iñaki Cañal, Samuel García, Eva Santidrián and Laura Hernández will also be in Eugene. , hoping that the speed continues to give joy.
All eyes will also be on the world champion in the 800 meter indoor track in Belgrade, Mariano García, although somewhat covered this summer above 1:46.00 but always unpredictable, accompanied by Álvaro de Arriba (1:44.85), champion of Spain in Nerja in 2022, and Adrián Ben (1:44.93), more than a second behind the favorites, the Algerians Djamel Sedjati and Yassine Hethat, and the French Benjamin Robert and Gabriel Tual.
On the other hand, the Spanish call caused some controversy, which indirectly ‘solved’ Adel Mechaal’s positive for COVID. The Catalan was registered in 1,500 and 5,000, to the detriment of Ignacio Fontes, from Granada, who was third, ahead of Mechaal himself, in the first distance in Nerja, but did not make the list. This decision did not please the athlete, who protested, along with his coach, on social networks.
Finally, Mechaal, who touched a medal at the 2017 World Cup in London, tested positive for coronavirus and fell out of the call for the ‘milqui’, where Mohamed Katir could be an interesting cover for Spain, with time to run in the 5,000, more advanced the Championship, already recovered although with the unknown of how his physical state will be after the illness.
Mario García Romo, from Salamanca, new champion of Spain in the 1,500m and one of the debutants with the national team, knows very well what it means to run at Hayward Field, since he was recently second in the NCAA. Fontes himself and the summoned athletes who participated in the U-20 World Cup that hosted this stadium in 2014 have also competed on this track: María Pérez, Fátima Diame, Carlos Mayo, Diego García Carrera and Laura García-Caro.
At the international level, the spotlight will be on the Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas, between cottons but favorite in the triple jump, despite only having one jump in 2022. The pole vault record man, Mondo Duplantis, who will seek his first outdoor world title. Ryan Crouser, Athing Mu, Joshua Cheptegei, Letesenbet Gidey, Sifan Hassan, among others, are the Olympic champions who will participate in Eugene, with the leading role of the American hosts, among which Allyson Félix stands out, who will end her career in Hayward Field, with the option of adding a new medal to the 18 he has achieved in World Cups.