“I would like to thank Marco Mura for his commitment to the meeting. An example is the cleaning of the track before the competition, which made a tangible contribution to the athletes’ results.”
Salvino Tortu, Filippo’s father and coach, in an interview to Luca Landoni for Queen Atletica.
The quality of a track’s maintenance can contribute greatly to athletes’ performances.
Synthetic outdoor tracks are exposed to air pollution and weather, but a thorough cleaning of the surface can restore it to its original performance characteristics, without damaging either the material or the line markings.
This was the case for the MONDO track installed at Fontanassa. Marco Mura, the expert meet organizer of the VIII Meeting Città Ittà di Savona – Memorial Giulio Ottolia, ordered a deep cleaning for the track surface.
The results were fantastic.
During the competition, last year’s European U-20 champion, Filippo Tortu, crossed the finish line in 10.03 seconds (+0.7 m/s), beating his previous best time of 10.15 set last year. The performance moved Tortu, who ran the second fastest time in Europe in 2018, into second place on Italy’s all-time list, just behind Pietro Mennea, who holds the national record of 10.01 which was set at altitude at the 1979 World University Games in Mexico City, nearly two decades before Tortu was born. Finishing just after Tortu, Marcell Jacobs ran a 10.08 (his lifetime best) after clocking a wind-aided 10.04 in the heats.