Silence is golden for showman Tamberi

Italian rises to the occasion with remarkable European high jump win, while Díaz Fortun also turns on the style in the triple jump

When he retires from athletics, Gianmarco Tamberi has another career ready and waiting for him. The man is a natural conductor.

He was, without doubt, the centre of the crowd’s attention at the Olympic stadium in Rome on Tuesday night (June 12) and, while the attendances have been disappointingly sparse throughout these championships, the 32-year-old’s appearance had ensured the section directly in front of the high jump mat was a sell-out.

With an expectant public watching on, president of the Italian republic Sergio Matarella in attendance and a brass band playing the Italian national anthem before the evening’s action got going, the pressure was very much on for Tamberi to put on a show.

Doing that very thing is what the current world and Olympic champion does best, however, and he rose to the occasion. The only thing he does by half measures is shave.

The entertainment began with a raucous entrance that gave Tamberi – bouncing into the stadium sporting gold trainers and his trademark semi beard – goosebumps and teed up a truly dramatic evening’s sport, helped by the fact that thousands were hanging on his every move.

As he entered the fray at 2.22m, the 32-year-old raised his arm to call for complete silence and the crowd obeyed. They didn’t utter a sound until her sailed over the bar and burst into celebrations.

For his next jump, at 2.26m, he asked for the slow hand clap. That tactic didn’t work quite so well as he needed two attempts to go over that height.

With all the attention focused on the home hero, however, Ukrainian Vladyslav Lavskyy quietly crept into the lead with first-time clearances at 2.26m and then 2.29m.

Tamberi wobbled, missing his first two attempts, though all that did what present him with a chance to crank up the drama a notch further and call on the crowd.

Defeat was not supposed to be in the script and again he asked for silence. Again, it worked and from that point on he began to spread his wings. Victory was all but assured with a first-time clearance of 2.31m, a height Lavskyy passed on after one failure.

When the Ukrainian’s defeat was confirmed with two failures at 2.33m, Tamberi decided to go into full showman mode.

First, he tried twice to go over 2.33m and twice he failed but, with gold assured, he decided to give himself a shot at 2.34m. Over he went. Then…