The rivalry between the Cubans Pedro Pablo Pichardo, representing Portugal, and Jordan Díaz (Spain) is going through an extremely complicated moment after the results in the European Athletics Championships, which resulted in one of the best triple jump competitions in history.
Díaz, at just 23 years old, reached 18.18 meters to win the gold medal, with Spanish and continental records, as well as the third best performance of all time, falling just 11 centimeters short of the world record held by British athlete Jonathan Edwards.
However, the competition was extremely close, as the Portuguese athlete achieved a score of 18.04 to secure the silver medal. Nevertheless, nobody expected his reaction to the validity of the winner's result.
In an extensive post on the social network Instagram, Pichardo publicly expressed his doubt about Díaz's jump, and asked: "Why did the electronic board go off at that moment? How do we know it was really 18.18 meters?"
The Olympic and universal monarch expressed that he "would like European Athletics, World Athletics, and the responsible judges to give a quick response and clarification about what happened in the pit at the moment when the Spanish athlete achieved that great performance."
And he continued: "In a competition of that level, it is not normal to achieve a great result with the electronic system turned off."
In the same way, he recounted that his opponent "celebrated without even realizing where he had landed since the rule was already turned off, but it seems that he already knew that he had surpassed me even before the measurement and without the electronic ruler being turned on."
Without a doubt, Pichardo's actions generate more controversy among the athletes developed in the Cuban school of jumps, who appear as the top contenders for the title in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Since the classification, both had shown an excellent form, but they still exchanged several messages in the interviews conducted in the mixed zone.
What do you think?
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