This time the European Athletics presents Italy women (Antonella Palmisano in 20km and Eleonora Anna Giorgi in 50km) as the favorite for the double gold in the 20km and 50km road walk.
Certainly the two Italian athletes are to be counted in the favorite group for a medal, yes, but an old Italian proverb tells us that "the sea is between saying and doing". And the sea in our case takes other real names, first of all that of Maria Perez (ESP) who boasts a personal best of 1:26:36 obtained last year in Berlin 2018, but that this year, athletes of the Rusisa apart , she walked in Oropesa del Mar (ESP) in 1:30:55.
Also excluding the athletes of Russia, the European 2019 season sees Eleonora Anna Giorgi (ITA) lead the rankings at Podebrady who walked the 20km in 1:27:46, which however will compete in the inaugural 50km edition.
Between the time of 1:30:30 (Inna Kashina, Rio Maior 2019) and 1:31:20 (Ana Cabecinha, Lazaro Cardenas 2019) there are two other athletes from Spain, Raquel Gonzalez (1:30:17) and Laura Garcia-Caro (1:30:33), the other sweet surprise of Italy Eleonora Dominici (1:30:55) and the young German Saskia Feige (1:30:40) who represents for the citizens of Angela Merkel that of Eleonora Dominici represents for Italy: a mixture of hope, surprise and determination.
It will seem very strange but the favors of the eve continue to fall on the name of Antonella Palmisano (ITA) who this year has not yet expressed herself on the 20km, by virtue of the time of 42:40.9 which she obtained in Rome on the track at the Italian Track Club Championships. The Apulian athlete has launched, among other things, a nice initiative: those who are closer to the time she will obtain in Alytus race will receive a free Italian shirt.
20km women
Seasonal European list 2019 including athletes from Russia (first 30 athletes)
50km women
We have already said that Eleonora Anna Giorgi will compete on the inaugural 50km.
His encouragement for this race is given by the impressive 2:45:21 obtained on the 35km of Gioiosa Marea (ITA) and that officially represents the second world performance of the 2019 season after the time of Liu Hong (CHN) when the athlete of the China got the first time at the bottom of 4:00:00.
On that occasion two other athletes from China, Li Maocuo, and Ma Faying obtained very interesting times on the distance, in particular Li Maocuo (4:03:51), however, under the previous world record of Liang Rui (4:04:36 )
The Italian athlete after the decision of racing in 50km seems to have almost completely solved her technical problems and the fight with the first athletes even in the shortest distance occurred during the present season in absolute safely.
At a conference in early April, her trainer Gianni Pericelli indicated for Alythus a hypothetical performance in a time zone between 4:05 and 4:10 and then aimed at a medal hypothesis in Doha (QAT).
We'll see.
In the following, meanwhile, the European seasonal ranking 2019 included the athletes of Russia (first 10 athletes)
Entry list: click here