Fiona May at the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 2005 (© Getty Images)
Italy’s two-time world long jump champion Fiona May, whose birthday is today (12), first leapt to prominence as a golden girl in the red, white and blue of Great Britain.
Born in Slough, raised in Derby, and educated at Leeds University, the teenage long jump prodigy was one of two British field event winners at the European U20 Championships in Birmingham in 1987. The other was Steve Backley.
At the World U20 Championships in Sudbury the following year, Backley took silver in the men’s javelin. May was the only British winner in the field or on the track.
And yet it was in the bright blue of Italy’s track and field Azzurri that she matured into a world-beating senior.
Representing her adopted homeland, the former GB wunderkind became an Italian sporting icon, collecting two world outdoor titles, one world indoor crown and a pair of Olympic silver medals.
May has kindly donated a signed Italian tracksuit from her farewell appearance on the international stage, the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 2005, to the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA).
Fiona May's MOWA donation (© MOWA)
The tracksuit has doubly treasured memories for May, who has achieved wider fame in Italian life as winner of the popular Dancing with the Stars television show, as an award-winning actress, a sporting administrator – and, of course, as mother of one of the world’s leading women’s long jumpers of the 2020s. Larissa Iapichino landed her first major outdoor medal with a 6.94m jump for silver (behind German Malaika Mihambo’s 7.22m) at the European Championships in Rome’s Stadio Olimpico in June.
It was at the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki that May made her major championship debut for Italy, leaping 6.90m for bronze behind the German giant of the women’s long jump, Heike Drechsler (7.14m), and Inessa Kravets of Ukraine (6.90m).
The senior medal she gained before moving to Tuscany, and marrying the five-time Italian pole vault record-holder Gianni Iapichino, was Commonwealth bronze for England in Auckland in 1990.
“I don’t think I would have achieved what I did if I’d stayed in Britain,” May reflected in an interview with The Independent on Sunday. “It would have been a miracle if I had.”
As a member of Derby and County Athletics Club in the English East Midlands, May set a UK age-13 best of 5.91m in 1983.
Three years later she jumped 6.11m for eighth place in the women’s long jump at the inaugural World U20 Championships in Athens, where her GB junior teammates Colin Jackson and Jon Ridgeon finished one-two in the 110m hurdles and Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor took high jump gold.
May’s highest placing as a member of the senior British team at a major championship came on the back of her World U20 Championships success in 1988.
As an 18-year-old, she leapt 6.62m to finish sixth in a high-quality Olympic final in Seoul. The medals were all claimed by former or present holders of the world record, Jackie Joyner-Kersee prevailing with a Games record 7.40m ahead of Drechsler (7.22m) and the Ukrainian Galina Chistyakova (7.11m).
A different mentality
In the azure blue of Italy, May made an instant impact with her European bronze in Helsinki in 1994. Then she hit the global gold standard with a vengeance on Scandinavian soil the following year.
Prior to the 1995 World Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, the women’s world outdoor long jump title had only ever been won by Drechsler (1983 and 1993) and Joyner-Kersee (1987 and 1991).
The established duopoly was blown apart as May unleashed her latent talent, mastering the swirling wind with a legal 6.93m (0.8m/s) jump in the opening round that none of her rivals – the “big two” included – could match.
For good measure, she improved to 6.98m with the help of a 4.3m/s following wind in the final round.
Joyner-Kersee, troubled by ankle and achilles problems, only managed a windy 6.74m for sixth place, while Drechsler finished down in ninth with a wind-assisted 6.64m. Cuban Niurka Montalvo took the silver medal with 6.86m.
Outdoors, the budding May maintained podium status at the next five global championships, with Olympic silver in Atlanta in 1996, world bronze in Athens in 1997, world silver in Seville in 1999, Olympic silver again in Sydney in 2000 and a second world gold in Edmonton in 2001.
Fiona May after winning the 2001 world long jump title (© Getty Images)
She also claimed a world indoor title in Paris in 1997, plus European indoor gold and outdoor silver the following year.
“The main reason I came to Italy was because I was engaged to Gianni,” May reflected, “but I definitely needed to do something about my athletics.
“Moving to Italy gave me a different mentality as an athlete. It also gave me great support by the Italian federation.”
82 top marks and counting
As a dabbling triple jumper, May was a European Cup winner in St Petersburg in 1988, setting a national record of 14.65m.
She still holds the Italian long jump record, courtesy of the 7.11m that earned her European outdoor silver behind Drechsler (7.16m) in Budapest in 1998, but nothing would give her greater pleasure than seeing that historical mark eclipsed by her daughter.
Larissa Iapichino was named after one of May’s rivals, Larisa Berezhnaya, the Ukrainian who won the world indoor title in 1991. In 2021 she jumped 6.91m to eclipse Drechsler’s 35-year-old world U20 record.
Coached by her father, she has earned European silver medals indoors and out at senior level, and come tantalisingly close to a global medal - finishing fifth at the 2023 World Championships and fourth at the 2024 Olympic Games.
Larissa stands second on the Italian all-time list with 6.97m, but at 22 she has time on her side to catch up with her celebrated mother, with whom she starred as a child in an Italian television advert for Kinder eggs.
Between them, Fiona May and her daughter are responsible for the top 82 marks achieved by Italian women in the long jump.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage
