The surge of the relays rescues a tough afternoon for Spain at the European Team Championships.

Jorge González, Abel Jordán, Adrià Alfonso, Guillem Crespí, Esperança Cladera, Jaël Bestué, Paula Sevilla, and Maribel Pérez. These are eight names and two hearts that beat strongly and soar. They are a team. They are the Spanish 4x100m relays. They finished fifth with a great time of 38.57 seconds, just 11 hundredths of a second off the national record since 2013; the women finished second (42.11 seconds) behind the Netherlands, which clocked 42.08 seconds. This was a new Spanish record, improving by seven hundredths over their magical experience at the World Championships in Canton, where they challenged the Americans, ending with a final explosion in Vallehermoso, after a tough afternoon that led into night.

The strength of the collective, on a day where a second and two fourth places were the best results, keeps Spain’s hopes for a podium alive. With one day remaining, the team is in sixth place (249 points), 7.5 points behind Poland in third, while Italy leads (290 points), ahead of Germany (266). To reach the podium on the final day, surpassing also the Netherlands and Great Britain, Spain must rely on its strengths: the pair in the 1,500m, Águeda Marqués and Adrián Ben; Thierry Ndikumwenayo in the 5,000m; long jumper Fátima Diame; the mixed relay; and the ability to exceed expectations from Ona Bonet in high jump, Adrià Alfonso and Jaël Bestué in 200m, and Marta Serrano aiming to emulate her Moha Attaoui in the 3,000m steeplechase, along with Manu Quijera’s javelin throw.

And to strengthen themselves with what occurred on Saturday, during the celebration of the sprinters, who end up hoarse after their shouts of joy and singing happy birthday to the great Paula Sevilla, 28, the goddess of the second curve and of La Solana, who, after finishing third in the 400m, is second in the short relay, and still has energy left for the mixed relay.

The green Irish grass and the lime green track resemble an immense spreadsheet and geometric figures to the technical directors of the teams, who sum and subtract and compare with forecasts. What Laura Redondo earns from the hammer circle (seventh, 10 points) is lost by Lester Lescay (ninth, eight points) in the long jump rectangle, and in the 110m hurdles, Quique Llopis emerges like a rocket, so fast that he nearly collides with the hurdles, clearing them as best as he can until he collapses on the ninth. He knocks down the last two hurdles, becomes uncoordinated, and cannot push himself toward the finish line. Fourth place, 13.40 seconds. In the same race, what Llopis loses, Xènia Benach regains, the hurdler from Villafranca del Penedés, who surges forward like the Valencian but stays steady, accelerating and not letting anyone catch her in series B, finally breaking the 13-second barrier (12.94 seconds), an obsession for her. After the A race (victory by two hundredths with a time of 12.39 seconds by the Swiss Ditaji Kambundji over the Dutch Nadine Visser), Benach finishes eighth out of 16. “You won’t believe it,” she says, “but I dreamed of this last night, that I would go under 13 seconds.” The Slim Delgado (fifth in 400m hurdles) ends where he expected, but David González (sixth in high jump, at 2.21m, his best mark ever) and Diego Casas, an extraordinary fourth in the discus circle (64.77m, improving with every throw), surpass initial expectations, compensating well.

The solidity of the team condenses into two images. A beach and a fall.

The stumble and fall of Daniela Fra, the Spanish 4×400 goddess in Canton, who went from the heights to misery in the blink of an eye. The skies were opening for her, fighting for victory on the final stretch, aiming for a time below 55 seconds, when, at the tenth hurdle, her foot tripped. She was not on the ground for even a second. She could only cry after finishing and at least score a point. She gained two. Her time of 58.27 seconds was not the last, after all.

While debutante María González sweats to avoid the tragedy of a third foul in triple jump, images of European champion Ana Peleteiro, who withdrew from the team for “personal reasons,” flood Instagram, showing her happily on the beach in Ribeira with her husband and daughter. González jumps 12.85m, which feels glorious despite leaving her 14th out of 16.

The Mediterranean showdown, which already began to lean toward the transalpine nations in throwing and jumping, becomes crystal clear as the sun still scorches half the track. At the same time, Poland shines, and Germany explodes.

Unconcerned by calculations and fainting, and sadness, happy in the heat, Miltiadis Tentoglou makes the sunlit grass a carpet for his barefoot strolls between jumps, his heart calm after jumping 8.46m, the world’s best mark of the year, on his first attempt. This competition is an opportunity for the double Olympic champion to establish his territory against the emerging Italian Mattia Furlani, who defeated him at the indoor World Championship in Nanjing. Furlani takes the duel seriously, leading to a better jump of 8.07m and three very close fouls by millimeters. In the mix, Lester Lescay jumps with excitement. Two fouls in the first two jumps force him to be cautious in the third to avoid elimination. He jumps without taking off the board, landing at 7.80m. By one centimeter, he fails to improve. “I didn’t take risks to avoid being the black sheep of the team,” says the young man from Santiago de Cuba, bronze medalist in March at the European indoor championships.

As with Tentoglou, Anita Wlodarczyk’s realm is not of this world, though she is in it, and her commitment is to Poland. At 39, she may have lost the strength and speed that made her a three-time Olympic champion from 2012 to 2021, the power that has kept her as the world record holder for nine years (82.98m), but not her competitive edge. With a modest fourth throw of 73.34m, Wlodarczyk dominates all the young ones.