The track at the Stade de France is 13,000 square metres of rubber polymer of various types, natural and synthetic, dyed lavender violet because it seemed too cool to the Paris organisers, who wanted a colour that had never been used on any track, and to the beauticians of the television production, who said, it looks great, the athletes will come out stronger and the images, cool. There was no intention, at least confessed, of a feminine proclamation in the year in which the Games achieved gender equality, even though women like Ana Peleteiro used the very fast jump corridor towards the sand pit, violet between two darker bands, more purple than lavender, to proclaim her unstoppable strength, her power as a free woman and mother, the girl with the grandmother, who stops a year and a half after being a bronze medallist in Tokyo, and returns stronger, more conscious. “With so many people, with so much noise,” she says, “this is a Show“I like the noise. It turns me on. I love the dance floor.”
A controlled run, minimal headwind, board adjustment (13 centimeters from the line), hop (5.35m), step (4.07), jump (4.94m), one arm forward, one arm back, flight and 14.36m, one centimetre more than the minimum required, it is not about showing off, and a good luck She is cheerful and genuine towards the other women who will still have to sweat to qualify for the final on Saturday (20.20). The wish of the champions: that everyone does their best, that I will jump one centimetre higher. “It has been very important to qualify first on a mental level, of course, and physically too, because it is, I think, the first time in history that they put the triple jump final on the day after the qualification,” explains the Galician, calm and collected, who speaks of a correct, educational jump, and only finds fault with her being 13 centimetres off the board. “I won’t have those biomechanical values in the final, for sure, but I need to make the most of the hours of rest, to ration my energy.”
“I’m here to be an Olympic champion,” announces the European champion and bronze medallist in the world indoor track. Absent from the track, but not from Paris, since at the Stade, in the select boxes, Yulimar Rojas spent the afternoon, her Achilles healing at a good speed, filming with her mobile phone and a certain melancholy the places where she is unique, like Peleteiro, with her same ambition, and capacity, and her power, and similar marks this year, between 14.70m and 15m, half a dozen more jumpers. There are the two Cubans, the veteran Liadagmis Povea (14.39m in the first, in the qualification) and the young Leyanis Pérez (14.68m, but in the third); There is Jamaican Shanieka Ricketts (14.47m in the first round), with whom she already fought in Tokyo (and left her behind), Ukrainian Maryna Bekh Romanchuk (14.30m, passed with the eighth best mark), who reached 15.02m to win the European Championship in Munich, without Peleteiro, on maternity leave, there is American Jasmine Moore (14.43m), who jumped 15.12m at altitude in Albuquerque but does not compete hard, and there is the magnificent Thea Lafond (14.35m), the athlete from Dominica, the only jumper who jumps like the men, with both arms moving in unison, not alternating, who won the World Championship in Glasgow against Peleteiro and Leyanis with a jump of 15.01m.
There is a good, evenly matched group, which is in good shape, and there is Ana Peleteiro, who is also in the form of her life – her coach’s patient experiment, building her up little by little, like Yulimar Rojas, the Venezuelan who lives in another world, one metre above the ground, world record of 15.74m – and she never fails. She competes better than anyone. She never fails, she always has a responsive jump and, even under maximum tension, a great ability to adjust to the board. She will not lose. It will be the others who beat her, in any case. And 15 metres in the viewfinder, the limit that she must fall. “We were worried about jumping two days in a row,” she says, “but Pedroso, who has been a long jumper, where it is always like that, has changed the weight program and we have been right.”
Peleteiro creates her reality, and lives in it, and Marta García, also a medallist in Rome, bronze in the 5,000m, collides with her, with the reality of the world, in a semi-final so unbalancedly designed that she is matched with nine athletes who have gone under 14m 35s, when she has a magnificent national record of 14m 44.04s. And leading the way are the two best in history, the world record holder, Gudaf Tsegay (14m 0.21s), the enormous Faith Kipyegon (14m 5.20s), double Olympic champion who is seeking an exceptional third consecutive title, and the European champion Nadia Battocletti. Despite this, the Castilian-Leonese García, who lives and trains part of the year in Sankt Moritz, had faith in her possibilities and maintained it for 4,500 m of the 5,000. Eight passed and the group she was in was made up of 10. She held on until she couldn’t take it anymore. She finished ninth. “I have discovered the reality,” she says. “At a global level, I still need to close a gap. It’s very clear. It’s a motivation to realize that there is still a lot to do and another step forward to be with those women.”
When the sun goes down, it smells like lavender in Paris, or maybe it’s just a suggestion.
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