It took the words of the Head Coach of the National Team of Italy, Elio Locatelli, a person we know very well who usually calls “a spade a spade” and not mince his words to make known to those who follow race walk in Italy the technical problem that afflicts some athlete of the specialty.
Better late that never; thank goodness on these pages for a long time we are saying it even in a roundabout way.
The glass seen half empty
After Taicang, inebriated by the unexpected bronze of Massimo Stano, and even more likely we were deluded after the results of the U18 European Championships in Gyor (HUN) where we collected a gold, a silver and a bronze. What a dreamer!
Just in Gyor the alarm bell should have to ring.
An attentive reader would have certainly noticed the general strict of that judgment, with several athletes in the Penalty Area, when also two of our three medal winners finished the race with two red cards against them.
Then to those who pointed out it was replied that with two red cards you win the Olympics; it is true, but you are at risk, and the risk weighs on the race.
It weighs because it does not allow you to walk as you would like in fluidity and to set your race strategies because you are on the defensive (which unfortunately many times is not needed).
This big technical problem must be solved in training.
This means neglecting the chronometer for a while and devoting itself to technical sections to correct errors.
Perhaps even (or obligatorily) would serve to start to set the kids starting from the concept of walking, which is basically the essence of the specialty.
The time to create the dynamism of the pace remains, but at the base a solid walk has been set up that avoids accentuating flaws that are no longer (or hardly) correctable when the speeds necessarily increase.
It will be said that then there are the jury's interventions to reshuffle cards.
It is not so.
The international jury sees only three types of race walk:
- the correct one: the reference could be Jefferson Perez and Liu Hong just to be clear. The one that does not show excessive high knees, correct movement of the hips and grazing step and low rise of the heel at the end of a good deep push.
- the acceptable one: that is, the one that, although not presenting the perfect technical standards, is in any case to the judge's eye, perhaps subject to a caution to underline he is walking in danger to broke the rule but not yet to be punished with a red card.
- the unacceptable one: the breaking the rule (both for loss of contact and/or bent knee) is that which is unaccepted and punished.
The six disqualifications (or penalties in the Penalty Area) of Italian athletes competing abroad in the last season have had as common denominator "the loss of contact with the ground".
In national competitions we see instead the posting boards almost always full of “bent knee" symbols.
How do we think that the coach can correctly direct the athlete to correct the error if an indication of the same is given that then from the international judgment is duly denied?
Let it be clear that as long as the Race Walk Judge continues to give to every technical audience a totally different message from the international one, for that Race Walk Judge ends the possibility to intervene substantially, for better or for worse, in doing something for the help of the coach and the athlete.
On the other hand, it is equally clear that as long as the Coach tries to fully discharge on the judge the responsibility of not having been able to correctly judge his athlete, (as he had always followed and seen to walk correctly during training), we can not help but talk about "vision of part".
The two functions are complementary, but must remain autonomous and distinct.
These reasons to think more and more effectively that an electronic control of the loss of contact is essential today to bring clarity and serenity in the relationship between those who walk, who trains and those who judge.
The glass seen half full
There were ten walkers in Berlin.
One, Antonella Palmisano, returns with a bronze medal around her neck: a good present for the next wedding.
One, Massimo Stano, returns with a fourth place and with a bitter taste that if perhaps he would have dared before something more would have collected.
He return home with the awareness that now, after Taicang and Berlin, can be sure to compete in the future as a protagonist and not as a walk-on, and this is not a small thing.
Between the two boyfriend of 50km (Andrea Agrusti and Mariavittoria Becchetti) she wins on him both in the position (10th she and 11th he) and because she has improved her personal best of over 8 minutes.
Finally, two words about the one we have perhaps forgot too often, Valentina Trapletti.
Without making anu fuss in her fifth 20km of the season arrives in ninth place with the new personal best and finally breaking down the wall by 1:30:00.
And yes she had been feverish the week before the departure, but no newspapers had talked about it. The following her season can be considered positive.
For the rest there is still a lot to work on.