We received from Mario de Benedictis this "Tale about the athletic race walk” on the subject of "Pit Lane Rule".

Needless to say that we loved this style, between reality and imagination,  in a sort of ideal conversation  between a Coach and a Judge that, for the good of the specialty, seems to say "Let's talk".

Not only we have published, but we allowed to ask the professor of Pescara, Abruzzo to continue with other "Tales" any time he feels like.

We will publish in the hope that our readers, particularly those of Italy who know Mario de Benedictis, derive food for thought.

Thanks for collaboration.

Stories around race walking

The Pit Lane Rule et alia

We are in Italy, nowadays, in a charming town on the middle of peninsula, a few kilometers from the sea. Today the city center is closed to traffic; is staged Race Walking Championships with its protagonists: the athletes, experts and beginners, and why not, the coaches and the race walking judges.

Coaches and race walking judges protagonists, alas, when the game goes live and souls light up, changing the emphasis of a blood good competitive spirit but essentially correct, in vulgar invective that closes any possibility of “tactic to listening”; and to reason.

The girl, young good walker, bouncing on the balls of her feet inside the "waiting area" (pit lane). At three quarters of the race she was achieved by the third “red” that only three years ago would have denied, with no ifs and buts, the possibility of closing the race. Now she turns on herself in a patch of red-hot asphalt, like a wounded animal; the look is on the clock, the seconds flow with deadly slowness; the opponents are now unapproachable. It is the longest minutes of her while young life.

The coach of the girl runs to the chief judge by eloquent gestures, loaded with obvious hostility next to the most violent expression.

(The Coach): Now you explain to me why you bear a grudge against her! She is the only walking while the others are running !

The chief judge avoids the provocation and leave the waiting area. Other athletes pass the finish line (which is about a hundred meters from there); the race is about to end, at least for those in front of the race and the girl has already leaped out of the pit lane area.

(The Coach): Why don’t you answer me ? I want an answer !?, does the coach plying up the chief judge troting next to him and giving no quarter.

(The Judge): Exit out of the course and let me work !, replicates the chief judge, whose patience is the smoke from his nostrils.

(The Coach): I get out, but before you owe me an explanation.

(The Judge): I do not have anything at all ...

The coach is literally pulled out of the course jerkily from a colleague, who, easy prophet, sensed the foregone epilogue of that sad squabble.

The first athletes crossed the finish line and also the girl of "three red" closed her race, in sixth place. The coach is with her. Both are sitting on a sidewalk. Both do not smile, but talk to each other busy busy. This time is the chief judge to approach the coach.

(The Judge): Can I have a word?

They move away from the girl. And the judge begins:

(The Judge): Let me: I believe that his athlete should work with more attention on the technique. Lifting and, sometimes, bent knee, are the result of excessive speed for her right now. And I add, she could be disqualified, when you run alogside her and passed the bottle on the course, over and over again. And then, please think about it: what sense does it refresh in competition with a cheer pack maltodextrin ? In a race of 5 km ...

The coach has some difficulty in understanding the words of the judge. The “wound” is still fresh and pride is an ugly beast, have crossed the "fourty". Perhaps, however, the next race will not give refreshments, prohibited and unnecessary.

Few bags further another coach is talking to a colleague:

(Another Coach): Here was the pit lane rule. Had we had last week during the provincial event on the track ! Today Marcolino would not abandon race walk. You know, they DQ’ed him out in his first race. At twelve years. In front of his parents and to me that I had done 100 km to meet and to see him ...

Mario de Benedictis