Unusual: he celebrated early, they passed him and he missed the bronze medal :: Olé

This Friday the 20km march was carried out, corresponding to the European Athletics Championships in Rome. Laura García-Caro She is one of the athletes who will always remember the event, not for having won a medal, but for losing it when she only had five meters left!

The Spanish woman already had the flag of her country hanging on her shoulders and expressions of happiness could be seen on her face, but Ukrainian Lyudmila Olyanovska had other plans for the 29-year-old Andalusian, because she overtook her at the last moment and won the bronze medal in the competition that concluded at the Olympic Stadium in Rome.

The final time of the Spanish was 1h28m48s, 40s behind the champion Antonella Palmisano. This test helped her to be taken into account by the Spanish Athletics Federation for Paris 2024, although she already has a guaranteed place because she will be part of the mixed relay team that will be present at the Olympic Games.

The gold medal went to the Italian and Olympic champion Palmisanowhile Valentina Trapletti, also tana and champion in Munich 2022, took the silver. If she had won the bronze medal, García-Caro was going to be the first to win one for her country so far in the competition.

“I still haven’t assimilated it, quite disappointed. The first part I competed as best as I could but I didn’t feel well. I felt more heat, I was tense, I suffered the first 10 kilometers and then the heat went down and I found better sensations. I didn’t want to wait until the final sprint because I knew that they are hard and if I go too fast at the end they can disqualify us,” the athlete told Corredor about the feelings she had after the failed race.

Regarding the exact moment she was surpassed, she explained: “I thought I could take the medal, in fact two or three times I looked back until the last 100 meters that I saw it relatively far away, and I thought it couldn’t reach me anymore.. The last 10 meters she thought she had them and… what a disappointment. “I think it’s time to assimilate it and heal my heart.”