Jacobs and Tamberi, it is Italy that embraces itself

There is Italy that embraces itself, there under that tricolor shroud, inside an empty stadium yet never so full of us, of all of us. Here they are, after the vertigo of triumph, exhausted and drenched with happiness, head to head, the fastest man in the world and the one who jumps in the clouds, whispering words that know of life that begins to turn again. In the suspended moment before their gesture – running, jumping – bypasses the news and becomes legend, Marcel Jacobs and Gianmarco Tamberi – close to each other – they are embracing the most beautiful idea they have of themselves, they are holding tight to what remains of this Italian Sunday which gave two gold medals to sport and its own identity card to a country.

An accomplice and light wind blows on the most beautiful day of Italian sport, while Jacobs says he “asked my body for the last effort” and these are words that also apply to Lazzaro-Tamberiindeed they are valid for all the bodies forced in this year and pass from isolation to the mortification of absence. Of many things. Of a hug, among many. For too long we have looked for each other in the reflections of a screen, we have talked to each other from afar, we have offered ourselves to smiles and tears of pixels, hostages of a distance that we did not know how to bridge. That distance – today – has been removed by the two Azzurri.

Here he is, Tamberi waiting for Jacobs at the finish line, like Vialli looking for Mancini at the final whistle of the European football championship and abandoning himself to his friend. Is there perhaps a fuller happiness than knowing that someone is waiting for you at the end of the race? In the turmoil of emotions, from there to here, from Tokyo to us, the hearts of two Italians beat, both started from far away, from escapes, abandonments, stumbles, vague opportunities, regrets, lives to be put back on their feet, injuries, abysses to get out of, climbing the rock walls that sport offers to those who know how to grab a foothold everywhere.

In the Italian summer that began with the victory of the Maneskin all’Eurovision – Shut up and good: now we know, it was not resignation but strategy – and continued with the triumph of the Azzurri at Wembley, we are here to celebrate – with Jacobs and Tamberi – the power of the unexpected. Suddenly, yes. But no longer a stranger, but someone we know very well, better than anyone else, we just forgot. We. We have found ourselves, we who now embrace under a flag or on the sofa at home, neighbors, in contact again, reconnected with our Time, happy to recognize each other, one in the other, as had not happened for a long time, too long. time.