The race walk world in Italy, today is shaken by another sad news.

The former Italian national walker Cristiana Pellino passed away today at the age of 47 (she was born on Sep. 21, 1970).

Cristiana Pellino had started competing at a young age at the age of 12 and immediately had an immense love for race walk.

We always remember her ready to compete with her Forestry t-shirt.

In career she won three Italian titles in a row on the 5.000m track walk in the years 1999 (Pescara), 2000 (Milan) and 2001 (Catania) and between 1997 and 2005 she was also three times silver and one time bronze.

On the road distance of 20km was once silver (Abano Terme, 1996) and three times bronze (Gioiosa Marea, 1995 - Bellaria, 2003 - San Giovanni Marignano, 2004).

Her best international result was the fourth place at the Junior European Championships (now U20) in Varazdin (CRO) when on Aug. 25, 1989 she came close to the podium of 5.000m track walk, only 3" behind Fina Compte (ESP - 22:53 ) in 22:56.

She then got her personal best on the Olympic distance at Eisenuttenstadt (GER) on Jun. 17, 2000 with a time of 1:30:42, on the occasion of the European Cup won by Italy with a fabulous team: Elisabetta Perrone (2nd in 1:27:42), Erica Alfridi (4th in 1:28:06), Anna Rita Sidoti (5th in 1:28:38) and Cristiana Pellino (9th in 1:30:42)

It was her only performance under 1:31:00, but it was other times.

Her love for race walk also saw her as mentor of Marco de Luca, to whom, together with the husband Filippo Collatina, she was bound by a deep friendship. It was she who introduced to race walk Marco de Luca still very young.

This morning she finished her fight against the disease with which she had been fighting for years.

The most sincere condolences to her husband Filippo Collatina and to the young sons Martina and Andrea.