Jordan Díaz Fortun moved to third on the world’s all-time list to win gold at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships on Tuesday (11).
In his first international competition for Spain since switching from Cuba, the former world U20 and world U18 championships, claimed his first international senior medal with a magnificent 18.18m (-0.3m/s). Only the iconic Olympic and world gold medallists, Britain’s Jonathan Edwards (18.29m) and USA’s Christian Taylor (18.21m) have jumped farther.
The Spaniard also bettered Edwards’ championship record of 17.99m which had stood for 26 years. His performance also came in the presence of some solid competition in Olympic gold medallist and defending champion Pedro Pichardo of Portugal, who was also in electrifying form.
Pichardo’s second round 18.04m (-0.6m/s), just 4cm short of his nine-year-old lifetime best. But even the great Pichardo could not respond to Diaz Fortun’s jump. France’s Thomas Gogois snatched the bronze for a personal best of 17.38m (-0.4m/s) in the final round.
"I did not really expect this - to jump this much," admitted Diaz Fotun. "But this is what we have been training for, and considering what happened in the background of my training, I am very pleased with my result.
"Seeing Pichardo jumping 18 metres was a motivation to jump even further because nobody came to to these championships to finish second or third. I thought it was almost impossible to jump 18 metres but now that I did it, I feel that nothing is impossible."
Chris Broadbent for European Athletics