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The 2020 Tokyo Olympics gold medalist, Pedro Pichardo, recently finished in second place at the 2024 edition of the European Athletics Championships in Rome. He registered a mark of 18.04-m during his jump, as he fell just 0.14-m short of Spain's Jordan Alejandro Diaz's 18.18-m mark (third-highest in the all-time list).
However, after the finals of the event concluded on June 11 (Tuesday), Pichardo raised certain questions regarding the credibility and fairness of the tournament. The 30-year-old claimed that during Diaz's 18.18-m jump, the electric ruler was not present and stated that the ruler was turned on after the Spaniard's final jump was executed.
Additionally, he asked how Diaz could celebrate his final jump as though he had won the competition given that the ruler was off and it was impossible to determine the mark he had set. Pedro Pichardo posted a video of himself and Diaz's last jump along with a lengthy caption on Instagram.
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"In a competition of this level, it is not normal to make a big mark with the electronic ruler being turned off, the athlete already comes out of the sandbox partying without even knowing where he'd landed himself because the ruler was already off but it looks like he already knew I'd surpassed me even before medication and without the electronic ruler being turned on," he wrote.
Pichardo further stated:
"One minute after his big jump the ruler came back on and coincidentally I was next to jump. How is that even possible?"
Jordan Alejandro Diaz reacts to Pedro Pichardo's comments with a story
Jordan Diaz recently reacted to Pedro Pichardo's comments against him after the latter questioned the fairness of the Spaniard's 18.18-m jump at the European Athletics Championships 2024 in Rome.
The Spaniard took to Instagram to share a story without writing or narrating anything. He just added a couple of stickers with crying faces without mentioning anything else.
This was one of the most formidable victories in the Cuban-born Spanish athlete's short career as he registered the third-best jump in the history of the discipline. Diaz's superb perfromance in the event also made him eligible to compete at the quadrennial event in Paris which will be the first Olympic event of his career.
