Italy celebrates golden era of sport

Rome: 2021 may only be a little more than half over but already it is a year that Italian sports fans will never forget.

On Sunday afternoon, within 10 minutes of each other, Lamont Marcell Jacobs and Gianmarco Tamberi won gold medals in sprint and high jump events at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Jacobs made Olympic history by becoming the first Italian to win the Men’s 100m final, succeeding Usain Bolt as the new fastest man in the world, while Tamberi shared the gold medal for the men’s high jump with Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim.

Neither athlete was expected to win and their victories sent Italy into delirium, in the latest in a series of sporting achievements at the highest international level in recent weeks.

Jacobs, who was born in the US to an Italian mother and American father, moved to Italy as a baby and was brought up by his mother in the northern Lake Garda region.

No Italian had ever qualified for the 100m final, let alone won it, in the 125-year history of the Olympic Games.

A message of congratulations was sent to both athletes from Italian president Sergio Mattarella who said he expects them at the Quirinal Palace on their return.

Jacobs had to interrupt an interview with a Spanish radio station after being handed a phone with Italian premier Mario Draghi on the other end.

“I am proud of you, I have been following you, you are honouring Italy,” Draghi told both athletes, inviting them to Palazzo Chigi when they get back to Rome.

“Marcell Jacobs and Gianmarco Tamberi have rewritten history,” said Giovanni Malagò, president of Italy’s Olympic Committee.

The pair’s success is the latest Olympic triumph for Italy, with Federica Pellegrini becoming the first Italian swimmer to reach the women’s 200m freestyle final, and gold medals for Federica Cesarini and Valentina Rodini in the women’s lightweight double sculls rowing.

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The Olympics comes just weeks after Italy’s football team beat England to win the European Championships, and Rome tennis star Matteo Berrettini became the first Italian to reach a final at Wimbledon.

This has led many in Italy to define 2021 as a ‘golden age’ of Italian sport as the country seizes the new sense of optimism after one of its darkest years in living memory.

The moment when Marcell Jacobs interview to Spanish radio is disrupted by Italian Olympic committee president handing him the phone saying “Italian prime minister Mario Draghi is holding on the line!”