The golden day of Italian sport at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has the faces of Gianmarco Tamberi and Marcell Jacobs. In 20 minutes, between 14.35 and 14.55 Italian, the two Azzurri write a page of history: first the triumph in the high jump, then the one in the final of the 100 meters. A stellar double, which engraves the date of 1 August 2021 in the annals of Italian sport and leaves its mark on the Italy Team expedition to the Japanese Games. Read also Tamberi flies to 2.37, conquering the top step of the podium ex aequo with the Qatari Mutaz Essa Barshim. The 29-year-old from Marche explodes when triumph is reality. The feat is accomplished, the nightmare of 5 years ago – with the Rio Olympics canceled at the last minute by a serious injury – is canceled. ‘Gimbo’ runs, jumps, collapses to the ground in tears. When he gets up, wrapped in the tricolor, he is the first to embrace the other half of the Italian gold medal. Jacobs crosses the finish line in 9”80, a new European record, and takes ‘the’ race of the Olympics: the 100 meters are his, in the roll of honor his name succeeds that of Usain Bolt, lord of speed for 3 editions of the Games. “I look at Gianmarco and I think ‘but we really won, isn’t it a dream and they will wake us up soon?’ It was all fantastic. I was very focused, I knew I could do something important and it has been done, I am the happiest person in the world right now “, says Jacobs in the maelstrom of interviews and statements, interrupted only by the ‘live’ phone call from the premier Mario Draghi. “Foreign journalists asked me questions in Italian. I was only born in Texas, at 10 months I was in Italy, Italy is my country. I’m happy to have raised this flag”, he repeats. “Mine is a very special story and if they had told me about this Olympic gold 5 years ago I would have had the chills “, says Tamberi, rewinding a tape on which disappointments, tears, sacrifices are engraved. “These years have been very difficult, I have always put the sport forward to try to succeed in this feat that seemed almost impossible after that injury: today I did not win the Olympics, I did something much bigger. In Rio I would have won the Olympics here I did something immense “, he adds.” In recent years I have said several times that I have not rejoiced in the small goals: this day I aimed to be the happiest man in the world, which is why I say that Marcell he is the second happiest man. I knew it would be a magical day for me. Before going to the stadium I wrote ‘It’s my day’. I think nobody believed it anymore, but I was convinced it would be my evening “.