Spain has two unusual U-20 European champions: a 100m runner and a discus thrower.

Everyone remembers Ramón Torralbo because he's the coach of Olympic champion Ruth Beitia . And yes, he was for nearly 25 years, but he's been for many longer. He has won 75 medals at the Spanish Championships, and he's one of the most influential coaches in Spanish athletics. One of his disciples, Pablo Delgado, was crowned European Under-23 triple jump champion a few weeks ago in Bergen (Norway). This Friday, in a memorable finale to a day for Spain, a 17-year-old discus thrower, Andrea Njimi Tankeu, took home the gold medal minutes before a Basque sprinter, Ander Garaiar, won the 100m final with a time of 10.40 seconds (-0.7 m/s), having turned 18 in May.

Garaiar is an introverted boy who has only been with his coach, Valentín Rocandio Rocky , for 11 months. He joined him because he wanted to take a computer science course in San Sebastián. He used to live in his hometown, Oiartzun, near the French border, and there he only trained three days at his school, Haurtzaro. One day they did circuits in the playground, another day they went out for intervals on a bike path, and on the third day they went to the athletics track in Irún. Those three sessions were enough for him to finish third in the Spanish Under-16 Championships. He had the stuff.

Rocky recalls that he found a technically good athlete but without a particularly striking physique. “He's under 1.80m tall and weighs around 70 kilos. He's not impressive physically, but he runs very well, especially throwing, and has a very good leg cycle.” The coach added strength training and slightly longer sets of 150m and 200m runs. Nothing out of the ordinary, but enough to build the endurance he was lacking. “He started the season outdoors and you could already see he was doing very well.” First came the Spanish U-20 record in the 200m. Then the 100m. And, to top it all off, the 4x100m.

Tankeu, from Santander and the daughter of Cameroonian parents, has been with Torralbo since she was a child and enrolled at the Piélagos athletics school. Her strength quickly led her to throw. “The shot put was difficult for her because she hesitates between the linear and the spinning styles, but she picked up the discus right away. She has a great wingspan and very strong legs and arms. But she's also fast, and as a child she wasn't bad at speed events,” explains her coach.

The Cantabrian discus thrower won the final thanks to her third throw, in which she improved her personal best by more than two meters and raised it to 54.28m, 12 centimeters more than Germany's Curly Brown. Tankeu, a very outgoing athlete, said it was an unexpected triumph. "I'm on cloud nine because I didn't expect it at all. I had trained for it, but I didn't expect it. At first, I thought I had thrown 50 meters, but when I saw 54.28m, I froze." Spain had never had European champions in any of the 100m and discus categories. And in the throw, they now have the U-20 European champion, Andrea Njimi Tankeu, and the U-23 champion, Inés López. Something unprecedented.