29/01/2019   Two sleepless nights and a cry of alarm






It was a Monday morning more than three months ago (October 22, 2018) and someone that night did not sleep too quietly.

 
The day before in that of Reggio Emilia, where the Italian Championship of 50km road walk was held (along with other corollary events), the technical rate of some top Italian athlete had been rejected by a disqualification from an international jury.
There had been seven (in the various categories among the seniors, U20, and U18) to see themselves face up to that damned red paddle, which is the nightmare of many.
But a good four more fortunately in the U18 managed to escape this danger by taking advantage of that rule of the "Penalty Area" that almost nobody wanted before, but that today is almost a cure.
We thought we had scraped the bottom of the barrel.
Not in the list !
 
The awakening of this morning was even more melancholic, with nightmares that have been repeated in a much more pressing.
Gioiosa Marea has reviewed in the same categories of Reggio Emilia (senior, U20, and U18) as many as 12 red paddles in this case also of an international jury, and including among these the 3 red paddles of U18.
 
It was the technique that was the great defeat of the day.
 
The 35km/50km of men, in particular, saw the exclusion of four top athletes, the elite from which it is hoped to find those who renew the glories of the past and maybe even manage to rework the mourning of the post Schwazer.
Until 2013, the good level of race walking in Italy was recognized as a model if not to be copied at least to refer to.
Then slowly things changed at home and unfortunately for the worse. Not enough today "the Palmisano model", "ten Palmisano models" are needed.
Today, the current situation shows that if we do not make a move we will need more group psychoanalysts than entry standard searches for international major events.
 
Change, but how?
The eye of the international judge is now accustomed to accept a simple gesture, made of push, of not excessive raising of the back heel, of the passage of the advancing leg close to the ground on the vertical and of the attack of the heel without seeing an excessive knee lift.
All this must be seasoned with an excellent movement of the hips.
Generally the stiffness of the hips is the main cause of the mistakes of the walkers together with the poor reactivity of the feet.
Is it possible that our old national gurus are not able to implement the dozen exercises of "afloçamento" (to say as Hausleber said) that would solve these problems ?
Please "Do in Rome like Romans do".
 
If we continue to think about having "the short period" as a goal, we will continue to believe in the fairytale that circulates rhythmically in the environment: "This will be a new Olympic Champion". Error, gentlemen!
Every year we hear a new name that would have the potential to become a new Olympic Champion, but then to notice the following year that the name was burnt at the stake of technique shot down by the red card of a serious jury around the world.
 
When in the 50km top team out of ten athletes of whom four have planned to stop at 35km (when the real difficulties should start), and when the remaining six, four see a red paddle in front of their shoulders, and one (the winner) ends with two red cards, then it is no longer time to argue against this or that judge, or to hide behind the historical sentences of thirty years ago that supported the protection of those yellow-green or red-blue or amaranth t-shirts.
It's time to think about our mistakes!
Before to build a champion we have to build a good walker, and building a good walker needs a lot of time!
Or maybe we forget that many top athletes at the beginning of their careers often ended up stopping at the side of the road or the track?
 
We plan to build an athlete who knows how to walk correctly and then let Mother Nature give us the chance to find the new champion born every ten to twenty years.
We try to do our job by presenting at the start some good, maybe very good walkers, who are not afraid to present anxiously before an international jury.
Jefferson Perez used to say that the judge is his friend because he helps him in understanding his mistakes. Imagine if Jeff said so !
 
If we do not do this we will not have done our job as coaches, as judges, as fathers, but above all as educators and we will have failed in the face of history, not the athelete disqualified on duty.
 
He only walks as we have taught him.