“The high jump wears out, I’ll close in Paris”

Olympic champion Gianmarco Tamberi, star of the high jump, confessed to the microphones of Gianluca Gazzoli, in the podcast “Passa dal BSMT”: “I’m training hard in view of the final phase of my career, I don’t know if it will be only two years athletics at the highest level, but I know that Paris 2024 will be my last five-circle review; this worn-out discipline, just think that no one has won the Olympic gold medal twice. The high jump imposes a high expenditure of nervous energy”.

It’s the mental aspect that makes the difference: “In the high jump the mental component is fundamental, clearly you have to be physically fit, but you need to be prepared to exceed your limits, inch by inch; this requires a great psychological commitment. Between Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo it was five difficult years for me, winning after the injury was a sort of obsession for me; I wasn’t serene, I was just thinking about taking my revenge, but there was, in addition to the expectation of doing well, the fear of not being ready and a lot of pressure, but I managed it. I really don’t know how I would have reacted in the event of a sporting failure.”

The separation from the coach father was not a bolt from the blue: “Our misunderstanding was born because of basketball, the sport I have always loved; I’ve always practiced it and, even when I started practicing the high jump at 17 and realized that I was a talent, I played basketball in a league. Dad forced me in 2014 to choose between high jump and basketball and I took it as a betrayal from him, because I had to give up the sport I loved; for a month I trained alone, then I accepted his rules and became a true professional. There weren’t any particular reasons, but we’ve always been on different points of view and now I have another coach, after trying to stay with him again the post-Olympic year”.