An incredible year for Italian athletics got even better at the Meeting Savona 2024, a World Athletics Continental Tour Challenger meeting, on Wednesday (15).
In the space of 15 minutes, Leonardo Fabbri went to fifth on the world all-time shot put list with a world lead of 22.95m to break the Italian record, and former world record, set by Alessandro Andrei in 1987 by four centimetres.
“I'm really happy, I saw my coach Paolo Dal Soglio cry and I cried too. Crazy stuff! For me Alessandro Andrei means everything, if I'm here it's thanks to him,” said Fabbri, who is now an iron-clad favourite for the shot put title in front of his hoem fans at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships from 7-12 June.
@ Chiara Montesano
And in the long jump, European U18 and U20 champion Mattia Furlani eclipsed the world U20 long jump record by one centimetre with a second round lead of 8.36m just in time before the conditions in Savona worsened.
“Finally! I have been looking for this result for a long time and it means a lot, it means that we are working well and on the right path, on the cusp of two very important events such as the European Championships in Rome and the Paris Olympics,” said Furlani as quoted by FIDAL.
There was also a notable performance from 15-year-old Daniele Inzoli who improved his lifetime best to 7.90m in the long jump. Watch out for him later this summer at the European Athletics U18 Championships in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia from 18-21 July when he will try to eclipse the bronze medal won by his older brother Francesco two years ago in Jerusalem.
In the women’s 100m, world indoor bronze medallist Zaynab Dosso improved the Italian record from 11.14 to 11.12 in the heat before slicing another tenth from the record with 11.02 in the final.
Another highlight saw Great Britain’s Charles Dobson smash his lifetime best in the men’s 400m with 44.46 to move up to equal-ninth on the European all-time list.
Ireland’s Sharlene Mawdsley won the women’s 400m in 51.43 just ahead of Great Britain’s reigning European 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson who opened her 2024 season with a lifetime best of 51.61.
Full results here.
Steven Mills for European Athletics