Portugal’s Pedro Pablo Pichardo and Thiago Luis Pereira today qualified for the triple jump final at the European Athletics Championships Rome 2024, both on their first attempt.
Pichardo, the Olympic champion in Tokyo 2020 and the European champion in Munich 2022, achieved 17.48 meters on his first attempt, while Pereira, the bronze medalist at the World Indoor Championships “Glasgow 2024”, reached 16.83 metres, with the second and fourth qualifying marks.
The Spanish Jordan Diaz topped this qualification for the final scheduled for Tuesday, at 20:55 local time (19:55 in Lisbon), with a time of 17.52, while the Italian Emmanuel Ehimeji was among the Portuguese, the third jumper, with a time of 16.98.
“I think we are all strong, they are young and they jump a lot,” Pichardo admitted, in the mixed area of the Olympic Stadium in Rome, after qualifying, referring to his former compatriots Jordan Diaz and the latter Andy Diaz. The naturalized citizen will only be able to represent Italy from August 1, in time for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Picardo, who, as in the European indoor track events Istanbul 2023, presented himself in trousers and a hat, arrived at Rome 2024 behind Jordan Diaz, with the second-best European jump of the year (17.51), after a period of absence from competition. Due to injury and disagreement with Benfica.
“But things went well, it was peaceful. I scored a qualification on the first jump, and that was the goal. I didn’t want to risk scoring a zero and having to do more than one jump to save myself for Tuesday. Qualifying doesn’t mean achieving big marks, the goal It is qualification. “Strength and courage must remain in the final,” stressed Pichardo, 30 years old.
Also in the first attempt, Thiago Pereira “jumped” to the final.
“The last few competitions have been difficult for me, but yesterday [no sábado] Today, during the warm-up, I started to feel good and realized that my legs were in good shape. “I did it and succeeded in the first jump,” summed up the 30-year-old Sporting athlete, assuming that he was “happy at the end of the day.”
Looking at the final, Thiago Pereira finds “very good” opponents, but he does not lose his ambition.
“My ambition is the top, always the top, the highest place, always. I will jump as far as I can. I always strive for the best and whoever jumps the most wins,” he stressed.
The horizontal jumps are competed on a platform placed at the height of the stands of the Roman stadium and above the track, much to the astonishment of the athletes.
“It’s very strange. I had to make some changes to my training so I can jump better in these conditions. Right now, I feel good and I don’t think too much about it, but I have to do my best,” explained Pichardo.
Thiago Pereira had already assumed he had stability, but in qualifying, he ended up not checking it.
“The platform is sneaky. We have to get the timing right. I even thought my jump wasn’t good, because apparently I didn’t step well. The ground there seemed more stable, but I didn’t feel it today.”
On Tuesday, the two Portuguese will compete in the triple jump final, a competition in which Portugal has previously won two titles, via Nelson Evora in Amsterdam 2018, and Pichardo in Munich 2022.
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