by Stuart Weir
This is Stuart Weir’s first article of four on the Golden Gala Roma, held on June 6, 2025. Stuart Weir is the senior writer for RunBlogRun in Europe. Stuart will be visiting the Diamond League Meetings in Oslo, Stockholm and Paris over the next two weeks!
Viva Italia
Track and Field is buzzing in Italy! At the 2024 European Championships in Rome, the host nation dominated with 24 medals, 11 gold. The next best was France with 16 medals, four goals. As the Diamond League series moved to Europe, Rome seemed an appropriate place and the Golden Gala the right event. Rome as a city has so much to excite, so much history and culture – from the Colosseum to the Vatican to the Olympic Stadium.
The Olympic Stadium is a magnificent venue. It has hosted a football/soccer World Cup and regularly hosts international games in football or rugby. It is certainly the only Diamond League venue with a warm up track with ancient statues looking down on the modern gladiators. The only reservation is that a decent crowd of 15-20 thousand, looks small in such a large stadium.
The 2025 Diamond League saw four Italian runners-up and a third place. The highlight was Nadia Battocletti who set a new Italian record in the 5000m of 14:23.14 behind Beatrice Chebet. Afterwards she told the media that she was “Sopra la luna” adding: “Wow! I was thinking about beating the national record this season but not this soon and not in this way. Today’s aim was to improve my PB and it worked. This is incredible, I guess this is the second fastest time by a European. Amazing! The season is long and I hope to be able to keep the emotion and the shape. The crowd was great and I have to say a big thank you to them because they helped a lot. It makes me so proud when they cheer for me. It means a lot to get Beatrice´s recognition for this national record – I guess we have to support each other. My strong finish helped me a lot and I worked hard for this finish. Achieving this national record in Rome means so much to me”. If your Italian does not go much beyond pizza and pasta, she was over the moon!
Roberta Bruni was second in the pole-vault with 4.65, commenting: “It was so great to compete for my home crowd, this success is fantastic. I saw a lot of people I know in thecrowd – my family, friends, friends from school and from my former club”. The point about the former club is that she is now based in Spain.
Ayomide Folorunso was another second-placer, in the 400m Hurdles in 54.21. She seemed pleased: “It was a beautiful sensation to race here and to come second. Thank you, Jesus. I am so satisfied with the race because there was no messy technique. I made a little step forward, it is still early in the season. I actually was hoping to win, why not be ambitious, anything can happen in such a race”.
Zane Weir – a distant cousin, I am sure – was second in the shot put with 21.67. Like all the others, he was delighted to compete at home: “It is special for me coming to Rome. I am happy about my comeback after injuries. It is great to show the performances I am capable of. Having the home advantage was great. It was so motivating to hear the kids Scream”.
Matteo Furlani produced his two best jumps in rounds 5 and 6. His 8.13 was enough for second, almost a win. He spoke afterwards with a lot of emotion: “I wanted to be on the podium today and it worked. I am very satisfied. This result brings points and helps me to stay on top of the world ranking. It was difficult to keep with the others, it was a dramatic evening: the Golden Gala was a difficult competition. I managed to give a good response on my last attempt. The season is long and my big aim is to keep it going until Tokyo. Explaining technical things is difficult and complicated, but tonight was very special, especially with the home crowd here. Most important thing tonight is the placement. Today was also a celebration of my world indoors gold medal”.
The one disappointment of the evening was that Gianmarco Tamberi could only clear 2:16 and was 10th and the fourth best Italian on the night. Gimbo spoke about his first competition of the year with characteristic honesty: “I am dead, I am literally dead because honestly, I did not come here for the result. I knew I was not in a good shape, we did not train to jump now. We just tried to jump in the training twice, but my fans want me to be here and I could not say no. The love they gave me all those years is very important to me. I just wanted to show up and I will keep all these feelings in my trainings trying to become the best in September even more. This is just what I was expecting. Probably, I could have jumped 2.20 but it would not change anything. Today, it was about the feelings, about the emotions, the love everybody was showing and I just want to thank everybody for coming here. This makes me feel hungry for more. But at this point, we were just trying to fix a few problems”.
What a character!
