Álvaro Martín has definitively established himself in the elite of the walk with a sensational title in the 20 kilometers this Saturday in the test that has opened the World Cups in Budapest and which began two hours later than expected due to the storm that hung over the Heroes Square.
In this way, the walker from Extremadura achieved his first great medal at a global level after his golds in the last two Europeans and joins his name to an illustrious list of six medalists in the test that most revenues has given Spanish athletics throughout its history and that it would well deserve a greater defense from the federative bodies. He is the second universal champion in this distance together with Miguel Ángel López and the fourth in the march (Chuso García Bragado and Valentí Massana have one each in 50). And he did it with suspense, as the test was delayed two hours by a huge storm.
The precursor was Josep Marin three years after the also Catalan and sadly missing Jordi Llopart hung the first Spanish Olympic medal in athletics in Moscow 1980 (in 50 km walk). In the second World Cups (Rome 1987), Marin was bronze with 1:21.24 behind two minutes behind the Italian Damilano (1h:20.45) and the Czechoslovakian Pribilinec (1h:21.07).
One of the great moments of the Spanish march came in 1993 at the Stuttgart World Cups. Six days before Chuso García Bragado’s gold in 50 kilometers came the first ‘double’ in history with the title for Valentí Massana with 1h:22.31 and the third position with 1h:23.18 for Dani Plaza who had just been an Olympic champion in Barcelona.
In the next appointment in Göteborg’95, Massana presented himself with serious options to revalidate his scepter, but he met the sensational Italian Michele Didoni (1h:19.59) and had to settle for the silver medal 24 seconds behind the champion.
There the 20 kilometer walk entered a transition phase with three World Cups without medals that broke the always controversial and ‘cheat’ Paquillo Fernández in Paris 2003. The man from Granada was leading the race five kilometers from the end with a 32-second advantage, but a hurricane named Jefferson Pérez overtook him and ended up winning with authority (1h:17.21), leading the Spaniard by 39 seconds.
Not Helsinki’05, Paquillo was left alone with Jefferson Pérez and once again the Ecuadorian genius brought out his enormous quality to revalidate the gold with 1h:18.35 and relegate Guadix to silver (1h:19.36). The day was completed by an athletics worker like Juanma Molina from Murcia with his bronze (1h:19.44) for the possibility of the second Spanish medal for the second and last time in this test.
In Osaka’07 there was a strange circumstance that did not affect the third gold followed by Jefferson Pérez (1h:22.20). Behind, Paquillo was third, but he saw the incredible ‘slut’ of the Tunisian Hatem Ghoula and passed him on the grid, but was disqualified for irregular running and subsequently requalified with his third consecutive silver.
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Since then, only Miguel Ángel López had been on the podium in a World Cup and also twice. The disciple of José Antonio Carrillo arrived at Moscow’13 after his fifth place in the London Games and was very solid to finish third (1h:21.21) behind Aleksandr Ivanov (1h:20.58) and the Chinese Chen Ding (1h:21.09 ), but the Russian’s disqualification for doping years later gave him the silver medal.
Not happy with it ‘Superlópez’ made history in 2015 in Beijing emulating Massana and Bragado as the only champions Spanish march world championships until this Saturday when Álvaro Martín joined them in a big way. The Murcian was close to perfection to win with a personal best (1h:19.14), ahead of the Chinese Zhen (1h:29.19) and the Canadian Thorne (1h:19.57).
2023-08-19 11:48:10
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