He raises both arms to the sky, exhausted, but with a smile that extends wide. Because he knows very well that he has just settled his accounts with destiny. For goodness sake, it was not a question of karma: Stefano Baldini that Olympic gold in Athens 2004 he went to get it with four years of suffering, sweat and dedication.
At the Sydney Olympics he had seen that dream he had cherished for so long shatter. The race was not even over, frustration was pouring in, which could have turned into depression. Instead, the athlete from Emilia had been able to take the blow, slowly starting to breathe again. And putting one step in front of the other. There was no time to feel sorry for himself. There were the next Olympics to prepare for even better.
Then followed four long years of total devotion to the cause. An enormous period, at times exhausting, because you feel like you never see the finish line. But Baldini had it engraved in his head. He would go beyond his limits. He would interrupt the African supremacy in the marathon.
In fact, just before that torrid storm struck August 29 at the Panathenaic Stadium of Athens, had appeared confident almost to the point of arrogance. That was obviously not the sentiment he wanted to convey. It had more to do with the fact that he knew he had arrived there in a space form, and with a gigantic debt to fate, to be collected at all costs.
The bookmakers remained skeptical. The opponents were of absolute caliber and there seemed to be no margin to accomplish the feat. Even just winning a medal would have been complex. There was the Kenyan Tergat and the whole battery of other Africans. There was the prodigious Brazilian Vanderlei De Lima. And the American too Member of the Keflezighi. Getting it right seemed like a complicated mission.
But Baldini hadn’t gotten there armed only with a lot of training and a lot of willpower. He had a sharp strategy and he applied it right away. The plan was to stay in the top positions until halfway through the race, without forcing. Then try to skim, playing it out with the two or three who could handle the blow.
Among them was De Lima, who had lost – it must be said – a bit of concentration at the entrance of a madman who had tried to attack him around km 35. And the American of Eritrean origins Keflezighi, a thorn in the side. Stefano, once he glimpsed the last kilometers, would however change pace. Constant and unstoppable acceleration. Sprinted towards the medal stand. Thus he had freed himself from the American and gone to get De Lima. A comeback, the commentators had recalled that day, worthy of Bordin in Seoul ’88.
And then off he went, leaving everyone behind, with no one able to reach him again.
At the finish line he raised those slender arms towards the sky. Olympic gold in the marathon. The second European to do so in thirty years. Today, 20 years later, that memory still produces an intense sparkle. That destiny, sometimes, is a long race to correct.