Tokyo 2020: On World Friendship Day, Barshim and Tamberi share emotional high jump gold

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Bengaluru, August 1: Poetic justice prevailed at Tokyo 2020 when friends Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi decided to share high jump gold medal and the fact that it happened on the World Friendship Day put things into proper perspective.

After clearing 2.37M and failing at 2.39M, double-world champion Barshim and Italian medal contender Tamberi agreed to share the gold medal instead of going for a jump off in a thrilling final at Japan's National Stadium with Maksim Nedasekau of Belarus settling for bronze.

The decision to share the gold medal, which was happening for the first time in athletics since 1912 Stockholm Olympics, left layman shocked, but people in the know of things could easily gauge the reason behind it and the fact that that it happened on the World Friendship Day made things more sweeter.

Tamberi had gone through a tough mental state of mind after an injury five years back and it was Barshim who had come to his help then.

No wonder that the friends decided to share the yellow metal instead of going for a jump off among the two options given to them.

The friendship between Barshim and Tamberi dates back to 2016 when the Italian broke his ankle.

"With Mutaz especially I built a great relationship. I was feeling frustrated, because I didn't know whether I would ever get back to the shape I was in in 2016," Tamberi had written in a blog for Spikes in January, 2018.

"When I finally started competing again in 2017, I remember my first big competition in Ostrava where I jumped 2.20M. I'm used to the crowd getting behind me and supporting me, but in this competition I felt my opponents were part of the crowd. They really tried to support me.

"I remember, I went from Ostrava to Paris, and I did badly in Paris, really awful. I couldn't clear my opening height.

Other jumpers would come to me afterwards, but I didn't want to talk to nobody. I went directly to my room.

The day after, Mutaz started knocking on my room and he wouldn't go away. First I just wanted him to leave. He persisted and was shouting: "Gimbo. Gimbo, please I want to talk to you." So I gave in and let him in.

We talked. I cried in front of him. He tried to calm me down, and told me what he had to say.

"Don't try to rush it," he kept telling me. "You had a big injury, you're already back in the Diamond League. No one expected that. But now you need to take your time, don't expect too much too early from yourself. Just see what happens."

The most important thing he helped me realise was that I had to do it for myself, not for others," Tamberi recalls in that interview and what unfolded at Tokyo on Sunday (August 1) was a culmination of that.

For Barshim, it has been a steady rise through the ranks. Bronze in London 2012 (later upgraded to silver) and silver at Rio 2016.

Gold is the only place the 30-year-old could have gone for at Tokyo 2020 and he did precisely that.

It was Qatar's second gold medal at Tokyo 2020 after weightlifter Fares Ibrahim Elbakh won them their first yellow metal in Olympics history a day earlier.

Tamberi added Olympic gold to a world indoor and a European title and celebrated with elan despite the absence of spectators due to the COVID-19 protocols.

It was double delight for Italians as later on Marcell Jacobs claimed an historic gold medal in men's 100M final, the blue riband event of Tokyo 2020 Olympics.