On Friday morning, during the first day of the Italian Track Championships at the end of the inauguration of the new track of the Grezar Stadium (which took place the day before), the USSI (Unione Stampa Sportiva Italiana), organized a round table on the state of athletics in Italy.

At the round table, organized by Matteo Contessa, copy editor of the sports services of the newspaper "Il Piccolo" in Trieste and the regional vice president of the USSI Friuli Venezia Giulia - Marco Lucchetta Group, participated:

- Elio Locatelli - Technical Director High Level Fidal

- Marco Sicari - Chief of Fidal Press Service

- Franco Bragagna - the athletic voice in RAI-TV

- Venanzio Ortiz - European Champion in Prague 1978

- Roberto Fabbricini - Secretary General of Italian IOC 

- Giorgio Brandolin - President of IOC in Friuli Venezia Giulia Region

Marcia dal Mondo through the excellent relationship with Matteo Contessa has asked for a short article on the event, given that in the same, a lot of athletics were spoken, but also with some interesting starting point on race walk. Now we like to have our readers participate.

The long wave of the negative transition has not stopped, for the Italian athletics. Last year's Rio flop (no Olympic medal after 60 years since last time) had sparked the spotlight on a descending phase that had begun much earlier, causing Fidal to radically change things. But ten months after the Italian athletics yard is still open. Indeed, it is in the process of starting, as the euroindoor of Belgrade and those in Lille's open-air teams have said. In the Track Championships of Trieste, then, it was only possible to observe some young "futurable".

The two "men of rebirth", the Technical Director of High Level Elio Locatelli and that of the Development Stefano Baldini, know well how high the mountain they will have to climb to succeed in the project. Locatelli, a sailing expert of the athletics and not only Italian, spoke without a hitch in Trieste a few hours before the start of the Italian Championships in a meeting with sports journalists (the theme was "From Rio in Tokyo, the four years of Italian athletics at the Games of XXXII Olympics "), but also in front of his "employers" in Fidal and even in front of Roberto Fabbricini, Secretary General of Italian IOC. The first boulder launched it immediately, expressing amazement and disappointment for the absence In Trieste Championships of all the athletes he would be heading when one month at the London World Championships and almost none of them still got the minimum requested performances for access. A message to Fidal for no encrypted and even hidden, to ensure that in the future "barycentric" and collective opportunities to assess the health of the whole movement, such as the Italian Championships, are not being downgraded to meetings for young people and athletes of lower level.

Money is needed for the raise, of course. The 5 million that Fidal receives from Italian IOC may also be enough, it has been said, but should be well spent, with targeted choices. And since the IOC’s other money to be paid hasn’t been subject to a restriction on State transfers (450 million euros last year) and having to redistribute resources to all affiliated sports federations, it is above all necessary to recreate a reservoir already pre-adolescent. The school camps that in the Trieste debate Venanzio Ortis recalled, telling his experience of a former top athlete, there are no more. But there is not even a working project of collaboration between IOC and school. In Friuli Venezia Giulia, as IOC’s regional committee chairman Giorgio Brandolin pointed out, the IOC-School is well-functioning and well-functioning (primary school teachers with training courses to engage in motor activities with their schoolchildren) with a cost of about 700.000 euros. But it is not replicable at a general level, because the vast number of sports facilities spread throughout the northeast corner of italy, in other regions does not exist.

In short, it will take a while before the Italian athletic connective tissues will be reconstructed. In the meantime, we must take into account the good exceptions we already have and hope that they will stay for a long time. "In October, I will present my program - said Locatelli - if it will be approved and supported, I believe that within two or three years you will be able to return to being competitive enough to think about Tokyo 2020 with new hope for medals."

Meanwhile, however, the only reservoir that seems to have higher resources is race walking, the "Saint Race Walk" as Dt himself has defined it. That discipline, which is often not considered, has always obtained successes.

"If he had not been disqualified, in Rio Schwazer would surely have won a medal. Now we have some cartridges to shoot in London.”

Already qualified for the show are Marco De Luca and Matteo Giupponi in the 50km men, Eleonora Giorgi and Antonella Palmisano in 20km women. From these Locatelli athletes awaits a lot, in England. In fact, to say it all hopes to bring medals. Meanwhile, we cross our fingers and pray for "Saint Race Walk".

Matteo Contessa