It wasn’t easy for Gianmarco Tamberi get to win the Italian title in the high jump, but in the end the Olympic champion made it. The Marchigiano arrived in the play-off against Marco Fassinotti. After the account broke even at 2.23, they both failed three times at 2.26. Back at 2.24, the two jumpers managed to jump it on the first attempt, so Tamberi placed the winning jump at 2.26, while Fassinotti missed the three attempts.
The victory was not without controversy: at the moment of greeting the two did not shake hands and Tamberi missed one word too many that cost him a yellow card for unsportsmanlike conduct.
The reason? It is the same Olympic gold to explain it in a video on TikTok. “I would like to apologize for my gesture because in some way it is still wrong, it is wrong to react to provocations – begins the Fiamma Oro – So I apologize to all those present and to those who watched the match live “. Speaking of the “provocation” in which he crashed, the athlete from the Marche continues: “There was a playoff between me and Fassinotti, I expected and would have liked to jump very high because it was my last race before the world championship, Marco knew it and I wanted to. Instead the game went differently, we found ourselves in a playoff. After my jump at 2.26 with which I won the race I could not go on to continue jumping because the playoff does not foresee that the pole can be raised further – he explains again – So I got off the sack and went to Marco to give him his hand and congratulate him because he had made some good jumps, while I approach him extending my hand, he looks at me with a grin and tells me ‘you can’t go on’, as if to say ‘it is true that you have won but what you wanted you can’t get it today. ‘ A bit like a mockery of my situation, and at that moment I didn’t see it anymore ”.
Then Tamberi continues: “It was the whole race that was teasing me and it has already happened in the past several times, I found myself in races in which he told me before the jump ‘you can’t do it anyway’, or when in 2013 he told me ‘you thought you were going to beat me, you can’t do it’ “. “There were a lot of dynamics, however I’m here to apologize to all those who saw something unsportsmanlike in my gesture. I was provoked and I fell into provocation, so I apologize for this, we shouldn’t do it ”, he concludes.
