For many of the athletes set to compete at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi, it’s a dream come true. For Slovenia’s rising star Sandro Tomassini, there is extra excitement at the prospect of being in Nairobi and not just relegated to watching the competition from the sidelines after an injury kept him away from the high jump for the better part of this season. In fact, the World U20 Championships will be Tomassini’s first competition in 2021.

When he started having problems with his ankle towards the end of last summer, the 17-year-old assumed it was only a minor injury that would soon mend. However, that was not the case as he copped an even bigger injury by winter, which further stalled his progress.

Tomassini is regarded as the emerging face of Slovenian athletics after stunning the world with a global U16 best of 2.20m in May 2019 while competing in Ljublana. He was only 15 at the time, but that turned out to be the defining moment of his career so far.

He followed up with two personal bests in 2020, first clearing 2.21m to win the Slovenian Cup and then two weeks later improving that mark by 1cm at the Slovenian U20 Championships. Then injury struck.

“Basically, I started having problems at the end of last summer,” he says. “I thought at that time that it was going to be fine by winter, and then in winter I had a bigger injury. It was not the worst, but it was pretty bad. I thought I would be okay by early summer again, like July, but again it prolonged, until finally in August things calmed down and now I’m ready to jump again, so we will see how it goes.

“At the time I jumped my personal best, I was really happy because the season was going well. I had jumped two personal bests prior to that and there was still more to come but after that competition I started having the problem and all the next competitions were a bit worse. I was at my peak then when I jumped 2.22m, and there was still about 5cm under my back, but the injury prevented me from doing anything more.”

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Tomassini started athletics as an 11-year-old and was training at Slovenia’s biggest athletics club. At that time he was doing everything, including jumping, running and throwing. However, he veered into the high jump a year or so later when his club needed someone to do the discipline at a competition and because he was into the long jump, he was conscripted. Surprisingly, he won the event and started doing high jump once a week.

As he began to improve, Tomassini switched fully to the high jump at the age of 14 and has no regrets. At age 15 in 2019, he knew there was no going back. “It was when I was 15 and I jumped 2.20m that I just knew that I could jump a lot,” he says. “That was the season I really stepped things up.”

The year 2020 came with its challenges in the form of the coronavirus and Tomassini says it was a tough time for him, as it was for most athletes. However, Slovenia ensured that all the competitions that were previously postponed could happen in July, and Tomassini would go on to compete in seven domestic competitions, affording him the opportunity of setting his personal best of 2.22m in the fourth. But that was when his injury set in, so his results in subsequent outings fell to 2.12m, 2.09m and 2.10m respectively. His last competition for 2020 was the Wanda Diamond League in Rome where he placed seventh with a height of 2.05m.

In January, Tomassini fractured his ankle ligaments in training and had to call it quits on the indoor season, only resuming training in April. He also missed the European U20 Championships, but now that he is in Nairobi for his first global competition, the youngster says he’s not under any pressure to perform since he’s only just making a return to active competition.

With the men’s high jump final taking place on Saturday (21), he says: “I’ve been waiting for this for four years. I’m really excited; I can’t wait to meet everyone, to jump with them. It’s going to be really fun.

“I’m really here with no pressure but of course I have expectations of myself but anything can happen. My physical condition currently is better than last year, but we’ll see how the technical part goes, and the mental part as well, so it will be a surprise for everyone.”

When asked how high he thinks he can go, Tomassini chooses not to give too much away. “I can’t say how high I jumped in training, but everything is possible,” he says. “I can jump badly or I can jump well, I really can’t say.”

Winning a medal in Nairobi would be huge for the teenager, so huge that he doesn’t yet know what his reaction would be. “If I win a medal here, I would really be overwhelmed by that; I really don’t know what my reaction would be,” he says. “As I said, I’m here with no pressure but then anything can happen. I will see at that time what my reaction will be if that for some reason happens.”

Although the Slovenian U20 record-holder intends to enjoy the Nairobi experience, he is already looking beyond that to the day he gets to rub shoulders with his more experienced counterparts like Mutaz Barshim, the joint gold medallist from the Tokyo Olympics.

“I’m really looking forward to that,” he says. “I’ve been to some big meets last year and I really had a lot of fun but then corona ruined everything. At the Olympic Games two of my favourite jumpers won, so I was really happy. Out of those two I’ve already met Gianmarco Tamberi. I haven’t met Mutaz Barshim yet, but I would really want to say hi or to just chat will be nice.”

And just like Tamberi and Barshim, Tomassini hopes to have an Olympic medal hanging around his neck in future. “Of course, my ultimate goal is an Olympic medal,” he says. “I would really be happy but until then there are more competitions that I can attend.”

Of course, the starting point will be the World U20 Championships in Nairobi.

Yemi Olus for World Athletics

Sandro JERŠIN TOMASSINI

Sandro JERŠIN TOMASSINI