Italian hurdler Lorenzo Simonelli hopes to have a glorious appearance in front of a home crowd at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships next month (tickets on sale here), and perhaps a medal on the Olympic stage in Paris.
“Rome has been my big goal since the start of the year. Naturally everyone is talking about Gianmarco Tamberi and our racewalkers but this will be my chance to let people know who I am,” said the 21-year-old talent, who took the 60m hurdles silver medal at the Glasgow 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships.
A win, or even a place on the podium, in the Stadio Olimpico in front of what is expected to be a large group of family and friends – “All my friends and family are buying tickets for Rome. It started at about 10, then went up to 20 and now it’s even more! I’m going to have a lot of support there!” – will also end a very long medal drought in this event for the Azzurri.
Not since another Italian icon Eddy Ottoz won the second of his two consecutive continental titles in 1969 has an Italian flag fluttered during a European Athletics Championships 110m hurdles medal ceremony.
Having started the 2024 indoor season with a 60m hurdles personal best of 7.59, set when finishing fourth at the Istanbul 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships, Simonelli clocked 7.50 in his second outing of the winter in Lodz, Poland to take possession of the Italian record from Dal Molin, who had run 7.51 in 2013.
He then reduced the record by three further increments, clocking 7.48 at the Italian national championships, 7.46 in Madrid and then 7.43 in Glasgow, when he chased home the USA’s three-time reigning world champion outdoors Grant Holloway to move up to equal-ninth on the European list for the indoor event.
“I never imagined I’d get this result. I came here wanting to get to the final but to come out with a silver medal is crazy. It was a fight for second place as Holloway is impossible to beat,” said a stunned Simonelli immediately after his Glasgow feat.
Speed is something Simonelli already has in abundance. He is able to boast of a 60m best of 6.59 – a time delivered when won the 2024 Italian indoor title in the event although he was actually second across the line at the championships behind the speedy Cuban Yenns Fernandez – which made him one of the fastest men in Europe, just six-hundredths behind the 2024 European leader and Simonelli’s compatriot Chituru Ali.
In addition, he has a 100m best of 10.25 from last year, which makes him considerably quicker on the flat – at least in terms of listed bests – than all of the other top European sprint hurdlers including Switzerland’s Jason Joseph, Poland’s emerging talent Jakub Szymanski, Spain’s reigning European champion Asier Martinez and the French trio of Sasha Zhoya, Wilhem Belocian and Just Kwaou-Mathey, the latter finishing just behind Simonelli in Glasgow to take the world indoor bronze.
Guiding the rising star of Italian athletics and sprinter Zaynab Dosso, who won a 60m bronze in Glasgow, is Giorgio Frinolli, who represented Italy in the 400m hurdles at the Helsinki 1994 European Athletics Championships and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
Frinolli could be said to have hurdling in his blood as his father is the Budapest 1966 European 400m champion Roberto Frinolli.
“When I saw Lollo (as Simonelli is nicknamed) in 2022, he was already a top junior but during 10 days of tests, he blew me away,” recalled Frinolli, in an interview last month.
“I could see that he had 13-zero potential even then. And he’s fast, Last year he ran 10.25 in tights and in the rain. He can run 10 seconds dead, perhaps even less. I don’t see any differences in an athletic sense between Marcell Jacobs and Simonelli, the difference is that Lorenzo knows how to hurdle. However, in the hurdles it’s not that an issue of how fast you go on the flat, but being faster between the barriers and controlling that speed,”
“In Glasgow, I looked at Simonelli and Dosso and just admired what they were doing, and how they were doing it. Usually, my athletes at major championships raise my blood pressure but on this occasion they lowered it. I think they can prosper in the theatre that’s going to be the European Athletics Championships in Rome,” added Frinolli.
Credit photo: Grana\FIDAL