Mariano Garcia, famed for his motorbike moves before starting his races, cruised to gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26, becoming the first Spaniard to win the men\u2019s 1500m title.
\nSince winning the world indoor 800m title in 2022 Garcia, now 28, has endured several years of injury but his career is now back at the heights.
\nAnd he produced a performance of poise and confidence to take this race on from the start and finish beyond the reach of a talented field that included the Portuguese athlete seeking to add a world indoor gold to the world outdoor one in Tokyo last year, Isaac Nader.
\nNader turned on his trademark power over the final 100 metres but he was unable to make any impression upon the man who had floated clear of the dawdling pack from 300 metres in.
\nGarcia looked over both shoulders so vigorously with 35 metres to go that he looked momentarily as if he might put himself out of his stride, but he resumed before crossing the line in jubilant fashion in 3:39.63.
\nNader, who had spent much time manoeuvring and running wide in order to tee up his challenge, looked deflated as he crossed for silver in 3:40.06.
\nBy contrast, the bronze medallist \u2013 Australia\u2019s Adam Spencer \u2013 looked elated as he sneaked through on the inside to cross in 3:40.26 after it looked as if third place was being disputed by Sweden\u2019s Samuel Pihlstrom, who finished fourth in 3:40.59, just 0.004 ahead of the Dutch European indoor 800m champion, Samuel Chapple.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s my first year seriously preparing for the 1500m and what better way than winning a world indoor championships?\u201d said Garcia after becoming the first athlete to win world indoor titles at 800m and 1500m. \u201cHopefully, in the coming years I will stay at this level because I\u2019m still a rookie; they don\u2019t really know me yet. In this race, nobody had me under control but I think from now on my rivals will be watching me more closely.
\n\u201cI just wanted to sneak into the final and see if I could fight for a medal, but when I found myself leading, I said that now I can fight for gold.
\n\u201cIn the end, that is exactly what I did. I was ready even for Nader\u2019s kick. That is why I made a very long attack. It was a bit risky but I\u2019m in a very good physical shape.\u201d
\nA despondent Nader commented: \u201cI\u2019m disappointed. If you are the world outdoor champion, your goal is to always win the race. Silver doesn\u2019t feel good enough. It\u2019s a very difficult situation knowing that you gave so much and got so little in return.
\n\u201cMy goal was to make history and become only the third athlete to win both the indoor and outdoor world 1500m titles. Today, the Spanish athlete was better but it\u2019s sport and I made a tactical mistake. I planned to be on the front of the race in the last 200m but I didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mariano Garcia, famed for his motorbike moves before starting his races, cruised to gold at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26, becoming the first Spaniard to win the men\u2019s 1500m title. Since winning the world indoor 800m title in 2022 Garcia, now 28, has endured several years of injury but his career is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95311,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95287\/revisions\/95311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}