Intense weekend in Italy with the Italian U20 Championships on the track.
And immediately we start on Friday morning with the two tests that assign the title of the race walking events.
10.000m track walk U20 men
Nineteen athletes show up on the starting line (8:20), and among them one who was born in 1987 and who is really not U20.
It is Teodorico Caporaso who got the go-ahead from the Federation to participate "out of the ranking" in these 10,000m for a purely technical reason.
The favorites are the usual four U20 musketeers of race walking in Italy.
They are two athletes from Puglia (Nicola Lomuscio and Pietro Pio Notaristefano), an athlete from Lazio (Diego Giampaolo) and an athlete from Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Emiliano Brigante).
As an outsider there is the athlete from Sicily Salvatore Manera.
Quick start of Teodorico Caporaso (of which we do not comment on the race as far as out of the ranking) and Salvatore Manera.
Manera earns meter by meter and poses as an outsider to a possible candidate for a medal.
The split times are as follows up to 7,000m
- 1.000m in 4:15:9
- 2.000m in 8:27.3 (4:11.4)
- 3.000m in 12:40.9 (4:13.6)
- 4.000m in 16:57.9 (4:17.0)
- 5.000m in 21:16.5 (4:18.6)
- 6.000m in 25:32.9 (4:16.4)
- 7.000m in 29.50.5 (4:17.6)
After 6,000m, in the meantime, Emiliano Brigante had placed himself as the leader of the opponents, and managed to detach both Pietro Pio Notaristefano, Nicola Lomuscio and Diego Giampaolo by about ten meters.
Immediately after the passage to 7.000m, Emiliano Brigante catches Salvatore Manera who tries to resist.
Meanwhile, Teodorico Caporaso is stopped by the jury in the penalty area and serves a one-minute stop.
When he returns racing he is just in front of Emiliano Brigante who, however, reaches him quickly enough and leaves him in place to fly towards a hypothetical victory
At 8.000m Brigante leads in 35:00.3 (4:09.8). His speed change left its mark on everyone except Nicola Lomuscio who tries in every way to recover ground.
At 9.000m Brigante is always in the lead in 39: 12.1 (4: 11.8) while Lomuscio is about 30 meters and Giampaolo is behind by another 40 meters.
But here is the last thriller of the day: Diego Giampaolo was stopped by the jury in the penalty area and his one-minute track clears the podium for Salvatore Manera.
Nicola Lomuscio tries until the last moment but today the victory goes to Emiliano Brigante, who has finally listened to the technical advice received from various quarters and has dedicated the last two months to an extreme refinement of the technique that left something to be desired at the beginning of the season.
Today this work has paid off.
Victory to Emiliano Brigante in 43:07.8
Second place to Nicola Lomuscio in 43:17.05
Third place (but out of the ranking) Teodorico Caporaso in 43:17.83
Fourth place and bronze U20 to Salvatore Manera in 44:06.47
Fifth place to Pietro Pio Notaristefano in 44:34.43
Sixth place to Diego Giampaolo in 45:15.32
10.000m track walk U20 women
At 9:20 instead the women's U20 race begins with twenty-one athletes at the start.
In this race the fight for medals is restricted to three young athletes with a preference for Alexandrina Mihai (47:08.80) over Vittoria Di Dato (47:49 on the road) and Giada Traina (48:28.83).
In our opinion, Anita Laiolo and Sofia Fiorini present themselves as outsiders.
Totally different, but it was to be expected, from men the women's walking race, monopolized by Alexandrina Mihai.
The young athlete for 14 years in Italy, and still not eligible to wear the Italian national team shirt, she dominated far and wide in the lead from the first meter.
Her walk was defined by all the coaches on the edges of the track with the adjective "wonderful" and we can only run in with them.
Her split times each 1,000m were as follows:
- 1.000m in 4:45.4
- 2.000m in 9:20.2 (4:34.8)
- 3.000m in 13:53.6 (4:33.4)
- 4.000m in 18:27.3 (4:34.7)
- 5.000m in 22:59.4 (4:32.1)
- 6.000m in 27:33.7 (4:34.3)
- 7.000m in 32:09.4 (4:25.7)
- 8.000m in 36:45.2 (4:35.8)
- 9.000m in 41:21.3 (4:30.1)
- last 1.000m in 4:32.19
This performance in addition to representing the new personal best of the athlete is also the second female U20 world performance behind the result of 45:24.1h obtained in Canberra (AUS) by Olivia Sandery (AUS) on 15.1.2022 and ahead of 46:46.97 obtained in Eugene (USA) on June 24th by Valeriya Sholomitska (UKR).
If only Alexandrina Mihai could get her Italian passport in time, she could play for the chances of medal at the U20 World Championships in Cali
Second place to Giada Traina in 46:51.44 with the new personal best and the fourth seasonal U20 world performance behind Valeriya Sholomitska (UKR).
The previous one (48:28.83) dated 10.4.2022 obtained in Prato (ITA).
Third place to Vittoria Di Dato in 49:04.30
A few comments of a technical nature
Marcia dal Mondo generally accepts the work of the jury without any objection.
They are the ones to "whistle the penalties" and rightly they are the ones to decide.
But what sometimes we fail to understand are some things:
1.- how is it possible that the judges see certain incorrect technical gestures and in the same event they do not see others even more incorrect, in the crucial parts of the race and which unfortunately a lot coaches have instead detected?
Today some technical gesture seem to many to be more like a "jog with almost extended knees" than a walking gesture.
2.- as it is still possible, but we have been repeating it for years, that out of 46 red card sent by the jury in the two races, as many as 35 (over 76%) concern the technical error of the knee bending at the moment of contact with the advancing leg with thre ground ?
If so, would it mean that the vast majority of coaches in our country do not teach the correct technical movement to athletes. We don't believe it.
3.- how is it possible that athletes who come out immune from competitions, even important ones abroad, are almost always sanctioned in Italy and that instead the opposite happens for others who in the long Italian peninsula seem to have achieved what in politics is called "parliamentary immunity” and then just beyond the national borders witness and listen to a totally different music?
In 1977 the leaders of race waslking in Italy (Giuseppe Dordoni was the oly one against) accepted an imprudent "Italian Note" which basically said: "since it is not possible to perceive with certainty the flight phase, then let's not judge it". It ended badly, very badly. The past teaches us not to repeat the same mistakes.
We repeat that we do not discuss the severity of one jury over another. God forbid.
Instead, we argue that what should be the predominant principle is increasingly evident, namely that of an "equal condition level" in the same race.
It is no longer possible to hide behind an "I have not seen it" or worse "I shown the yellow paddle".
Perhaps the time has come for someone to reflect on these three points and give some answers.
The specialty needs it.
(Photos from Fidal web site)