EUGENE (USA) – Another Italian sprinter reached the final at the Under-20 World Championships in Eugene. Castellani Alessia set a new Italian under-20 record in the 200 meters with 22.99 (+1.2), becoming the first Italian junior to dip under 23 seconds and shaving a tenth off Elisa Valensin's previous best, who ran her season-best of 23.23/+0.5 in the semifinals but was eliminated. Juice lands in final in the 100m hurdles thanks to a 13.17 (+0.9) three hundredths of a second from her Italian under 20 record. An Italian woman had not been in the final for 40 years: the last one was Antonella Bellutti in 1986. In the men's 200m, Diego would have deserved to be in the final Nappi: because his time, a 20.72 (-0.5), close behind the 100m World silver medalist Gary Card (Jamaica, 20.64) and one hundredth off his personal best in the heats, is the eighth fastest time in the second round (and therefore better than two who qualified for the final). The Italian captain in Eugene finished fourth in the first semifinal, a placing that, due to the admission mechanism for the finals at these World Championships, cannot be considered a qualification for the next round. Out of the 110m hurdles final was Lombardy's Filippo Vedana, who came close to breaking the Italian under-20 record. Having arrived with a personal best of 13.72 and dropped to 13.50 in the first round, Vedana improved further to 13.28 (+0.3), just one hundredth of a second off Matteo Togni's national record (13.27, which earned him the European under-20 gold). A 13.17 was needed for the final.
Lombardy's triple jumper Francesco Crotti, the reigning European Under-20 gold medalist, improved by nine centimeters to 16.24 (+0.5), the eighth-best Italian junior mark of all time, 12 centimeters shy of the bronze medal held by Wang Zhuoyue (China, 16.36/+0.9). This placing ties Daniele Greco's fourth-place finish at Bydgoszcz 2008 as the best ever result for an Italian triple jumper in the event. The Cus Pro Patria Milano representative didn't hide his disappointment, but can be proud of his performance in the final: four jumps over 16 meters. The competition was won by Jamaican Michael Andre Edwards with a formidable 17.08 (+1.1), ahead of American Miles Nesmith (16.7/+1.0).
