Thierry Ndikumwenayo He added Spain's eighth medal at the European Championships in Rome after finishing third in the 10,000 meters final won by Switzerland's Dominic Lobalu. The silver went to the Frenchman Yann Schrub.
The athlete from Playas de Castellón debuts his record as a Spaniard in a great competition and with this bronze makes up for the disappointment of the 5,000, a test in which he finished fifth, when he started with more expectations.
The final left two other Spaniards, Jesús Ramos and Eduardo Menacho, excited for minutes with the possibility of achieving an absolutely unexpected medal. They came first and second in Final B, held an hour earlier, but with the same value as A. The high density of athletes registered for the event forced the European Federation to put them into two rounds based on the points to divide. It happens that final A, the fetén, started so slowly that final B dominated until after kilometer 7. There the British Patrick Dever started to increase the pace and the hopes of the two Spaniards ended.
Dever later paid for that effort in the last 400, in which the attack of the big favorites arrived. The Swede Andreas Almgren, who arrived as European leader of the year, failed in the final stages, as did the Frenchman Jimmy Gressier. But Ndikumwenayo persevered and sometimes even dreamed of gold, but the strongest was Lobalu, also bronze in the 5,000.
In the rest of the final there was no such luck with the Spanish presence. Adel Mechaal finished fifth in a 1,500 meter final dominated with an iron fist by Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who again doubled the continental title (1,500 meters and 5,000 meters). The Norwegian won in 3:31.95 after taking the lead at 22:38 06/12/2024a with one kilometer to go and leading the other 16 finalists with his tongue out. The silver went to the Belgian Jochem Vermeulen and the bronze to the Italian Pietro Arese, who surprised Jakob's theoretical rivals: Nader, Habz, Gourley… They all succumbed in the busy final section.
It couldn't shine either Fatima Diame, eighth in a long final of the highest level. Germany's Malaika Mihambo won the best world record of the year with 7.22. Diame remained at 6.69, far from the bronze achieved in 6.91.
And a good level, but without metal, in the three finalist relays. The women's 4×400 finished seventh; the masculine, fifth; and the women's 4×100 finished in fifth place in 42.64, virtually guaranteeing them a place in the Olympics.