A day entirely dedicated to race walk is the one that took place in Verano Brianza at the Clinical University Institute on Saturday 30th March 2019. It was a conference of national interest, where about eighty coaches, athletes and judges were able to discuss on the many aspects that revolve around the world of "heel and toe".

After the opening of the work by President FIDAL Lombardia Gianni Mauri, who held many positions in regional and national athletics but started his own activity as a walking coach, it was immediately the turn of Pietro Pastorini and Maurizio Damilano.

Pietro Pastorini wanted to go as so far as to do of race walk and the "threat" of a downsizing of the activity; he also underlined the very significant promotional role of the Frigerio Trophy, which this year extinguished the fifty candles.

After him Maurizio Damilano, Olympic champion of Moscow, currently president of the IAAF Race Walking Committee, wanted to update the audience on the progress of the numerous proposals for the future of race walking that the IAAF is evaluating.

It refers to:

- the introduction of technological insoles for detecting the times of loss of contact with the ground;

- the introduction of a second women's competition at the Olympic Games

- the shortening of the race distances.

On this last front, now being for certain the suppression of the 50km, the choice between the combined 10km-30km or the 20km-35 km is being examined substantially.

Maurizio Damilano hopes that the choice falls on the pairing 20-35km, but at the moment it is early to have definitive answers.

The next debate, which was expected to be quite over-heated, was instead very "on the piece" and to the four questions posed by Stefano La Sorda, Maurizio Damilano gave some answers the floor consider more than satisfactory even if they may not have totally satisfied who asked them.

After a very brief speech by Pierangelo Molinaro, a well-known sports journalist  in Italy for the Gazzetta dello Sport, who discussed the problems of the visibility of race walking among the media, reports concerning purely technical fields followed.

Sandro Damilano addressed the issue of what it means to coach an Olympic medal today, and he did it with good reason (he can boast 27 podiums between Olympic and world!) and underlining how the process must necessarily start from the technical  and stylistic care.

He pointed out that in China in the decade before his appointment, in major international events their athletes had collected 30 disqualifications; from 2011 instead the disqualifications have fallen to nine.

Subsequently Nicola Maggio in his report analyzed the issue of the bent knee and in particular the influence of visual inertia upon contact with the heel.

A problem particularly arising in Italy, where juries on average detect bent knee well beyond those of the rest of the world, not detecting the same similarity with regard to the loss of contact.

The last two reports were Patrizio Parcesepe, coach (among others) of Antonella Palmisano, and Gianni Perricelli, who trains Eleonora Giorgi.

Both have addressed the issue of planning high-level athletes.

Patrizio Parcesepe presented an interesting report outlining the general lines on the topic of programming and planning from a methodological point of view, while Gianni Perricelli focused on the technical path of his athlete, Eleonora Giorgi, based on her preparation for the 50km race for the Doha World Championships in October.

Finally, in the afternoon the field activity proposed by Massimiliano Cortinovis and Andrea Previtali was very stimulating, and they illustrated a series of steps to correct technical errors and generally improve the gesture. From the observation of the execution by the youngsters and from the live comparison with the local judges, interesting ideas were recorded, from which valuable athletes, judges and technicians both drew valuable indications.