Today in the newspaper La Stampa edition of Cuneo this article appeared that tells us about the mood of the race walking team of China that has been training in Saluzzo since the end of December,
The words of the team manager and those of the coach Sandro Damilano are interesting.
"Italians trust the Chinese people." This is the appeal of Lifong Yang, team manager of the race walk team of the People's Republic, who is training in Saluzzo these days.
The athletes of China, for 10 years, have been followed by Saluzzo Sandro Damilano, in the past also responsible for the IOtalòian team of race walk, elder brother of the twins Maurizio and Giorgio, also champions of the discipline and founders of the "School of the walk" for the diffusion of fitwalking.
"I arrived in Italy in mid-January - he says - from Beijing where I live and work. The capital is hundreds of kilometers away from Wuhan where the epidemic broke out. In the early days, getting information from our relatives at home was more difficult, but now the government is also providing constant updates and we are all more relaxed ».
The Chinese team is made up of 13 other people. The athletes are 8, four men and four women, including Liu Hong, Olympic champion in Rio, two assistant coaches and 3 physiotherapists. Some of them are likely to represent China at the Tokyo Games event this summer.
"The team manager - says Damilano - is the only one in the group who speaks English. Thanks to him I can communicate more easily with everyone else. We arrived in Saluzzo from a week after the Chinese New Year. Before we trained for a month in San Lorenzo al Mare, in Liguria. The whole team has been in Italy for over 2 months."
The return to the Far East was scheduled for February 17.
"The qualifying competitions for the Olympics was scheduled for March 1st - adds Damilano - and we were intensifying the work for that appointment. This morning (yesterday ed.) The Chinese federation met and postponed the meeting to April 15th and this complicates the situation».
"We were carrying on an excellent preparation - he continues - the best in my ten years as a coach of China Team and the fact of having to wait a month and a half more than expected for the race does not play in our favor. In this sport the results depend very much on the mental condition. Now it will be up to me to load all the athletes well in the next two months».
The Saluzzo coach will go to China with his team. "I was there in November and the situation was absolutely normal - he says -. We will see when it will be possible to fly again and what we will find over there ».
"Our families - says Lifong Yang - all live at great distances from the area affected by the coronavirus and we hear them every day. They are all well and now we are all quieter here too. In Italy we have always felt good and we are grateful to be able to train here in Saluzzo where the residents have never shown any hostility towards us, both in the past and in these days and for this we thank them ".
The Chinese walking team trains every day in the artisan area behind the Agricultural Consortium and in the country roads around the city. As in previous sessions, the athletes are accommodated in a downtown hotel.