“With a head!”, his coach demands, Jose Antonio Carrillo, in the refreshment area. “With head!”, the federation repeats louis saladie later, in the finish area, located in the Heroes’ Square in Budapest. Goes alvaro martin with the heart on fire and the legs boiling; how to ask her head if they are the best minutes of her life. A gold in the 20 kilometer march of the World Cup. Finally a gold.
At the age of 29 and after up to five attempts, Martín finally got on a World Cup podium this Saturday, he did it to the highest drawer and it was thanks to an attack from another era. In an instant he was fifth, and suddenly he was first, unleashed, carried away, flying to victory. At the right moment, at 15 kilometers, he jumped out of the group, where he had been kept behind the Swede Perseus Karlstrom, very veteran, and disappeared. nor the japanese Koki Ikedawho previously tried to break the test: nobody could stop him.
Facing the finish line, he grabbed the Spanish flag and crossed with a cry that was as heartfelt as it was tired. In his two previous successes, two golds in the European Championship, he had been able to celebrate with force, but not this time. The exhaustion from his demarcation and, above all, from the tension of the last kilometers, when he had to maintain his advantage, exhausted his strength. After the victory he could barely walk another meter.
In the first round of the championship, Spain experienced its first joy, a gold that it had not celebrated since Miguel Ángel López in 2015, in the same round.