2024-07-09 13:38:12
Text: Raul del Pino
Photo: Jordan Diaz / Instagram
Cuban Jordan Díaz has just written his name into the history books of athletics with the third best time of all time in the triple jump. The athlete from Havana, naturalized Spaniard, posted a sequence of 18.18 meters to take the gold medal at the European Championships and, in the process, dethrone fellow Cuban and Olympic champion with Portugal, Pedro Pablo Pichardo.
The duel in the final in Rome was preceded by controversial statements by Díaz, who admitted that there was no good relationship between the two. And everything seemed to indicate that Pichardo was merely responding in the competition when he stretched to 18.04 in his second attempt. It was only the third time in the career of the Santiago native that he surpassed the demanding barrier. The other two were in 2015 and still representing Cuba. So the second European title for the naturalized Portuguese was a matter of time.
But a thriving Jordan, who was finally able to make his debut in the Spanish jersey at an official event, responded with a 17.82, which was five centimetres below his personal best. With that jump, Iván Pedroso’s pupil had secured the silver and no one was going to blame him for anything else. However, Díaz wanted more and in the next jump he went a little further, up to 17.96, another formidable record that on this occasion did shatter his previous best, which was also that of his new country.
With the Spanish record in hand, Díaz’s performance could be considered more than satisfactory. Breaking the 18-metre limit was not in the plans of (almost) anyone at that height, not even in his own, but then came the fifth sequence… and the rest is history. Jordan’s jump was only below that achieved by the world record holder, the British Jonathan Edwards, in 1995, and the American Christian Taylor, with his 18.21, also in the distant 2015.
Depressed by such a performance from his compatriot, Pichardo fell short in his last two opportunities, but not before finishing with a 17.92 that also consolidates his excellent form and sends a loud and clear message about his intentions to defend his Olympic gold in the French capital against Jordan.
As an anecdote, the bronze medal was won by Frenchman Thomas Gogois with a very distant time of 17.38. And more than the medal, the Frenchman will be able to say in the future that he stood on the same podium as the first two triple jumpers in history to exceed 18 metres in the same major final. The only precedent of this event was achieved by Pichardo and Taylor, in the Doha stop corresponding to the Diamond League in 2015, with times of 18.06 and 18.04, respectively.
For Jordan Alejandro Díaz Fortún, who turned 23 on February 23, the dream of competing for Spain came a month and a half early thanks to World Athletics approving his nationality transfer a little earlier so that he could be present at the European Championships, of which he is now the brand new record holder and champion. The Cuban had settled in the Iberian country in June 2021, when he took advantage of a concentration of the Cuban delegation in Castellón before the summer event in Tokyo to defect.