Olympics: Furlani bronze in long jump, women's volleyball in semifinals
The Italian jumped 8.34, and is the first medal for Italian athletics at these Olympics. Gold went to the Greek Miltiadis Tentoglu, silver to Jamaican Wayne Pinnock
4' min read
Key points
4' min read
The Italian women's volleyball team fly into the semifinals at the Paris Games. Italy beat Serbia 3-0 (26-24, 25-20, 25-20) and will now face Turkey. Shortly before, Mattia Furlani won the bronze medal in the long jump at Paris 2024. The Italian jumped 8.34, and is the first medal for Italian athletics at these Olympics. Gold went to the Greek Miltiadis Tentoglu, silver to Jamaican Wayne Pinnock. "So I sound like a whiner.... it was unbelievable, I believed until the end, it's the biggest emotion in my life. Thank you to the medical staff and then everyone who was a part of this bronze." Those were the first words of an excited Mattia Furlani to the RAI microphones.
In the women's long jump there was good news from Larissa Iapichino: the Italian, who had to skip Tokyo 2020 due to injury, sprinted to 6.87 with her second jump and took direct qualification for the final by clearing the required measure of 6.75 after starting with 6.60. "It was a good qualification, I liked myself that I hate competing in the morning - Iapichino's comment - because I am an afternoon-evening type. But, joking aside, it was great because I am finally an Olympic athlete too, plus I am in the final. I put a lot of grit and enthusiasm into it, and I thought of me as a seven-eight year old child when I dreamed of achieving such a goal. Now I am in the final and I am going to play it like always, with the knife between my teeth.
Italian record in the men's 1,500
.Earlier, in the men's 1,500 metres, Pietro Arese's eighth place was accompanied by an Italian record that surpasses an icon of Italian middle-distance running: with 3'30''74 Arese improves the Italian record (3'32''78) held since 1990 by Gennaro Di Napoli by two seconds. "I was surprised to see this time, reading the '0' as the second digit of seconds displaced me," said the Italian middle distance runner. "This result came thanks to a lot of work and being surrounded by the right people, never oppressive, keeping the human side in the foreground."
On the day, Canada's Camryn Rogers won gold in the women's hammer throw, with a measurement of 76.97m. Silver went to the USA's Annette Nneka Echikunwoke (75.48m), bronze to China's Zhao Jie (74.27m). No European on the podium in a discipline historically favourable to athletes from the Old Continent. Last Sara Fantini. The European champion finished in 12th place with 69.58 metres.
In water polo, Setterosa is also out of the medals, being beaten 11-8 in a quarter-final match by the Netherlands.
