Italy
2019
One bronze at four in the morning, a final reached by a thousandth, and a future Olympic champion knocked out in the semis: Italy's 2019, read as a seismograph.
Italy sent its largest-ever team to the Doha 2019 Worlds — 65 athletes — and won one medal: Eleonora Giorgi's 50 km walk bronze. But the season reads differently now: Tortu made the 100 m final by 0.001, both 4×100s broke national records, and Marcell Jacobs — Olympic champion 22 months later — went out in the semifinals.
This is the before-photograph of Italian sprinting: the tremors of 2019, spike by spike, with the earthquake just off the paper — and the Asics Italia kit of that season, one piece of which is in this archive.
Part of our Season Series — one year at a time. The full national story is in The History of Athletics in Italy. Jump to the 2019 kit or browse the collection.
- The team
- 65 athletes — Italy's largest Worlds team until then
- The medal
- Giorgi's 50 km walk bronze (4:29:13) — in an event soon retired
- The thousandth
- Tortu into the 100 m final by 0.001 (10.101 vs 10.102) — 7th, 10.07
- The semifinalist
- Jacobs out at 10.20 — Olympic champion 22 months later
- The records
- 4×100 NR 38.11 (10th!) · women's NR 42.98 (7th)
- The signal
- Tamberi: European indoor gold (2.32, Glasgow) — 8th in Doha
- The after
- Tokyo 2021: 5 golds — the earthquake this paper predicts
- Kit
- Asics — Italy's outfitter until the end of 2022
A Flat Year, Read Wrong
Italy took its largest team ever to a World Championships in 2019 — 65 athletes to Doha — and came home with one medal, won in the small hours: Eleonora Giorgi's bronze in the 50 km walk, 4:29:13, in an event that would soon vanish from the programme entirely. Twenty-sixth in the points table. On the surface, a minor athletics nation having a minor year.
Spike height is editorial emphasis, not a measured scale; every event is verified. The earthquake — five Olympic golds — falls just off this paper. Hover or tab onto a spike. Sources: Wikipedia, Italy at Doha 2019 and the Doha 100 m page. Verified August 2026.
The tremors of 2019 (table)
| Signal | Detail |
|---|---|
| Glasgow, March | Tamberi European indoor gold — 2.32 |
| Doha semifinals | Tortu into the 100 m final by 0.001 (10.101 vs 10.102) — 7th in the final, 10.07 |
| Doha | Jacobs OUT in the semifinals — 10.20; Olympic champion 22 months later |
| Doha | 4×100 NR 38.11 (10th) · women's 4×100 NR 42.98 (7th) |
| Doha, 28 Sep | Giorgi: 50 km walk bronze, 4:29:13 — the only Italian medal |
| Off the paper | Tokyo 2021: five Olympic golds |
Read the needle, though. In March, Gianmarco Tamberi — still rebuilding from the shattered ankle of 2016 — had taken European indoor high jump gold at 2.32 in Glasgow. In Doha he was eighth at 2.29; the signal was the winter, not the summer. Filippo Tortu reached the 100 m final by one thousandth of a second — 10.101 against 10.102 — and finished seventh in the final Coleman won. And Marcell Jacobs, the man who would be Olympic champion twenty-two months later, went out in the semifinals at 10.20.
Records Nobody Noticed
The relays wrote the clearest foreshocks. The men's 4×100 broke the Italian record with 38.11 in Doha — and still finished tenth, out of the final. The women's quartet broke theirs too, 42.98, for seventh. A national record that does not even make a final looks like failure; it was infrastructure. In Tokyo, the men's relay project became Olympic champion at 37.50.
Antonella Palmisano walked to 13th in the 20 km — in Tokyo she would win it. The eruption itself — five Olympic golds: Jacobs, Tamberi, Stano, Palmisano and the 37.50 relay — belongs to another season's story; 2019 is the photograph of the before.
From this season · in the archiveAsics Italia Pro Elite 2019 Lightweight TracksuitAsics Italia lightweight tracksuit from the 2019 allocation — the kit of the largest Italian team ever sent to a Worlds until then, the season before the eruption.200,00 €View piece →The Asics Italia 2019 Kit
Italy wore Asics until the end of 2022, which makes the 2019 allocation the kit of the exact season this page describes: the uniform of the largest Italian team in history to that point, worn on the eve of the explosion. The piece we hold is the lightweight team tracksuit — the shirt from before the glory.
Asics dressed the Italian federation for over a quarter of a century, until Joma took over in 2023. We date the piece from its own labels.
The full national arc is in our history of athletics in Italy.
Italy 2019
One piece from the Italian team's 2019 allocation — the Asics lightweight tracksuit of the season before the eruption: the shirt from before the glory.
How did Italy do at the 2019 World Championships?
One medal from its largest-ever team: Eleonora Giorgi's bronze in the 50 km walk. Filippo Tortu reached the 100 m final by a thousandth of a second and finished seventh; Marcell Jacobs went out in the semifinals; both 4×100 relays broke the Italian record without medalling.
How close was Tortu's qualification?
One thousandth: 10.101 against Tyquendo Tracey's 10.102 in the semifinals — the smallest possible margin into a world 100 m final, where he ran 10.07 for seventh.
Why does Italy's 2019 matter in hindsight?
Because every signal of Tokyo 2021 is in it: Tamberi's European indoor gold, the relay records, Tortu's final, Jacobs's rawness. Twenty-two months after his Doha semifinal exit, Jacobs was Olympic champion at 9.80 and the relay won gold at 37.50.
What kit did Italy wear in 2019?
Asics — the federation's outfitter for over 25 years, until Joma took over in 2023. The Italy collection holds the 2019 lightweight tracksuit.
Sources and References
- Wikipedia — Italy at the 2019 World Championships — the 65-athlete team, Giorgi’s bronze and both relay records
- Wikipedia — Doha 2019 men’s 100 m — the 10.101 vs 10.102 thousandth and Jacobs’s semifinal exit
- Wikipedia — 2019 European Indoor Championships — Tamberi’s Glasgow gold at 2.32
- Wikipedia — Italy at the 2020 Summer Olympics — the five Tokyo golds this season foreshadowed