Olympic champion, European champion and now also world champion: Gianmarco Tamberi won the spectacular air show in the high jump final at the World Championships in Athletics in Budapest. Tobias Potye delivered a strong competition, just missing out on a medal in fifth place.
Tobias Potye cried out his frustration, he quarreled and tore his hair. Because the Vice European Champion knew that his good 2.33 m could have been enough for bronze. Would have. But in the end the Munich player was “only” fifth. Potye only crossed the 2.33 m on his second attempt, had he crossed the bar in the first round the 28-year-old would have taken home the bronze. However, one of the few great medal hopes of the German team in Hungary was shattered. And for Potye his very personal dream.
World Championship gold went to Gianmarco Tamberi from Italy for the first time, who mastered 2.36 m. The US American JuVaughn Harrison secured silver. Instead of Potye, defending champion Mutaz Essa Barshim (2.33 / Qatar) took bronze.
I won in my eyes.
2.36 m are “already a house number. But after the 33 it was clear to me that I could jump that,” said Potye of the sports show, but it wasn’t quite enough. Still: “I’m proud that I did it today. In my eyes, I won.”
Potye had jumped 2.34 m in the run-up to the World Championships and flew to Budapest as number three in the world, the computer science student’s goal: a coup similar to that at the home European Championships last year. But when the bar was set at 2.36m, Potye couldn’t keep up – it would have been an inch better than his personal best.
Potye tried to push himself again and again, patting his cheeks, his thighs, like: wake up, boy. He had easily mastered his entry height of 2.20 m, then the 2.25 m only in the second, the 2.29 m again in the first. Unfortunately, the 2.33 m again only in the second. In the blazing furnace of Budapest, Potye ran out of breath at 2.36 m.