Two athletes sharing Olympic gold in a near-empty stadium in Tokyo caught the imagination of an expectant audience across the world, which was at the time ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic. Mutaz Essa Barshim embraced his old friend Gianmarco Tamberi at the end of the men’s high jump as the judges confirmed the double gold for the Qatari and the Italian who have known each other for years dating back to competing as youths. “To be honest, it will never happen again,” Barshim said in an interview. “That moment, we’ll never share that again. It was a one-time thing. Coming back from injuries and a dark place, I wanted to do something different, something with a different meaning. I’m glad it touched so many people’s hearts, but we are sportspeople, we are professionals, we always want to be the best, we have that fire, ‘I want to beat you, you want to beat me’.” Barshim said he felt “lucky” to have shared the gold with Tamberi. “We’ve been competing since 2010 and came to pro level together,” he explained. “As professional athletes we deal with a lot. There’s one thing which is the biggest thing and that is injury. In 2018, I injured my left Achilles, broke both my ligaments and it was a very dark time for me, mentally and physically. One second you are the best and a few moments later you’re on a wheelchair and they’re dragging you out of the surgery room. Gianmarco, my friend, had a similar injury in 2016 just before the Rio Olympics which prevented him from being there. “When the bar was 2.37 metres in Tokyo and me and him cleared at the first attempt, we looked back and there was no one left, it was emotional. So it was a tie. I asked ‘can we share?’. The reply was ‘yeah it’s possible’ and that was it! We didn’t even discuss things. I looked at Gianmarco’s eyes, he looked at me, we jumped, we hugged and the rest is history, that’s one of the moments that will stick forever.” Barshim joked that World Athletics plans to award every event winner prize money of $50,000 (46,000 euros) would also guarantee no further shared gold. “It’s not happening, 50 or 500, no sharing!” said the 32-year-old, who also has three world outdoor titles to his name. “Anything offered in terms of a prize is good for the athletes, it’s motivation. These athletes work really hard and sacrifice and this sort of prize is very important. Prize money in athletics doesn’t compare to football or basketball, for example. It’s a good start, you have to start somewhere.” Barshim kicked off his outdoor season with second place at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting last week and will stay in China for the Suzhou of the elite one-day circuit today before returning home to Doha for the next instalment there on May 10. “After I’ll take some time off and hopefully peak at the Olympic Games,” Barshim said, adding that he was looking forward to the return of fans to the quadrennial showpiece of sports after the Covid-blighted Tokyo Games. “In terms of having the Olympics with fans back again, it’s amazing. I love adrenaline, when the crowd is back, the sound of clapping or shouting, it’s like a battle feeling,” he said. “We didn’t have that in Tokyo because of Covid but somehow we felt so ready because it was already postponed for one year. There was a lot of circling, but when it finally happened we were like kids going to Disneyland. We didn’t need fans to feel the hype.” Today, Barshim will be keen to get back to winning ways after being beaten on countback in his season opener in Xiamen by USA’s Shelby McEwen, with both men clearing 2.27m. They’ll renew their rivalry in Suzhou in a field that includes world indoor champion Hamish Kerr of New Zealand. “My current form is good, I was hoping to get more solid jumps last weekend but it was really risky and I can’t afford to have any more injuries,” said Barshim. “I’m trying to play it safe. I want to wake up and go out there and do my best, enjoy every competition. Hopefully the weather will stay like this.”

Six-times MotoGP champion Marc Marquez said he wants to return to racing on a factory bike in 2025 after switching from Honda to Ducati satellite team Gresini Racing ahead of this season.Satellite teams use older versions of the bikes, with Gresini currently using a Ducati Desmosedici GP23, as opposed to the factory Desmosedici GP24 machines being used by the Ducati and Pramac Racing teams this year.“At the moment I have nothing clear. Of course I would like a factory bike,” Marquez said in an interview on MotoGP’s website on Friday.“My work is to try to do 100% to have a factory bike for next year. I don’t have contact with anyone, I just want to do the best and if you are fast on the racetrack you will have more options to choose from.“Of course around Jerez, then Le Mans and Mugello there will start to be some contacts (with manufacturers), this is true. But at the moment I have some margin on the racetrack to keep going.” Marquez, who is eighth in the standings, is looking to claim a fourth career win at this week’s Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez.The Spaniard was leading the Grand Prix of the Americas earlier this month at the halfway stage but crashed out due to an issue with his front brake.“The team is working a lot, super hard with Ducati to see what we can do for the future to not have these problems again,” Marquez said of his preparations for tomorrows race.“But I am here to learn things, and now we need to clean all these small mistakes to be more constant on those top positions.”