Bata, Torto, Jacobs, and Desallo: The Return of the Fantastic Four

The quartet that won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics train in Rome at Aqua Assetusa

Sasari. Back together on the track. Marcel Jacobs, Filippo Torto, Fausto Desalo and Lorenzo Batta, after the magic gold medal in the 4×100 relay at the Tokyo Olympics with an Italian record 37”50, met yesterday in Rome, at “Paolo Rossi” del Acqua Assetusa, on the first day of The blue relay meeting that will continue until Saturday.

It’s only been seven months since that legendary gold medal (it was on August 6, 2021) and the Fantastic Four is back in action to podium at the World Championships in Eugenie, USA (15-24 July) and then to Europe in Munich (from 15 to 21 August).

“Let’s talk about us and not about football,” they said in the choir at the first press conference after the win. be satisfied. After the Azzurri were eliminated from the World Cup in Qatar, now all attention will be on the Blue Quartet. Marcel Jacobs, Fausto Desalo, Sardinian Filippo Torto and Lorenzo Batta met again yesterday, and between selfies and hugs, they made a pact: “We will do everything to return to the top of the world.”

An unusual assignment in Tokyo that no one betted a dime on the eve. But the Fantastic Four won by a hundredth of a second thanks to the Tortoise sprint. In front of Great Britain, she was then dramatically disqualified from the podium after the discovery of the positive doping of one of the relay runners, Ujah.

Bata, Tortue, Desalo and Jacobs train again alongside the orders of speed blue boss Filippo de Molo and collaborator Giorgio Frinoli, and return to practicing stick passing and the manual skills of gearboxes. Among the teams there are also Cagliari and Anderson Polanco, booking the gold relay in Tokyo.

Dalia Kadari, the European U-23 200m champion, also arrived in Rome preparing for the women’s 4x100m race. (gz)