Grottammare, in the province of Ascoli Piceno, will again host the last 2021 appointment of race walking.
For the historic "Centro Marcia Solestà" by Vincenzo Ferretti, once again the stake is to be one of the symbol organizers of race walking in Italy.
The writer has had the honor of knowing him since 1980 and even then he had a leading and enviably organizational structure behind him.
Historic was the edition of the Italian 50km Championship held between San Benedetto del Tronto and Ascoli Piceno on 8.11.1981 under an incessant rain and a snowstorm and it was resolved in the last kilometers when Vittorio Visini (4:07:16) won his seventh and last 50km title overcoming an exhausted Sandro Bellucci (4:10:25) right in the Solestà cemetery area.
Our friend Vincenzo Ferretti deserves a monument for his dedication to the development of race walking after 50 years.
The latest word of this season is that for the first time we compete in the Italian men's 35km championship, since the IOC and World Athletics decided to replace the 50km with the 35km at the Olympic Games for gender equality.
The tradition of the event continues with the classic award named after Serafino Orlini which celebrates the edition number 50 and a rich program that includes the women 20km for the fifth and final stage of the Club Championships, while the U20 compete on the 15km. Godmother of the event, even if not in the race, will be the Olympic champion Antonella Palmisano who in Grottammare won one of her first successes as a student.
35km men
A dozen walkers were expected at the start.
In our opinion, there are four athletes who could play for medals, technical situation permitting.
Three of these have a very similar personal best: Michele Antonelli (2:38:33), Stefano Chiesa (2:39:08), Leonardo Dei Tos (2:39:24) to which Gianluca Picchiottino adds to his first experience on the 35km.
Antonelli, Chiesa and Dei Tos come this year from different experiences on the 50km: a 15th place in 3:56:18 in Podebrady (and a 2nd place in the Ostia storm) for Michele Antonelli, two DQs (both in Ostia and in Podebrady) for Stefano Chiesa, and finally a DNF for Leonardo Dei Tos again in the unfortunate race in Ostia.
We are told that Stefano Chiesa has improved a lot from a technical point of view. We will see if the jury will also be of this opinion.
Riccardo Orsoni is a candidate for the U23 success for his first experience on 35km.
20km of the Club Championships
In the women, Nicole Colombi, Italian 10km champion in Rovereto is the favorite (accreditation time: 1:32:26), for the victory.
Lidia Barcella (accreditation time: 1:35:05) together with Federica Curiazzi (accreditation time: 1:36:47) will fight for the other places on the podium.
In the U23 men Davide Finocchietti (1:25:41), Ettore Grillo (1:26:15) will play it while in the U20s Daniele Breda (1:31:38), Filippo Antonio Capostagno (1:33:46) will play it. ) and Nicola Lomuscio (1:34:42).
The common denominator in this race will be technique, as, unfortunately, four of the five athletes indicated above, come from a series of not-so-thrilling performances in importamt competitions.
15km U20 Women Club Championships
Favour of the eve goes to Martina Casiraghi, fifth in the 10,000 at World and European Championships in the category, while Vittoria Di Dato, who this year won the Italian title in the 10,000m track walk, and Alexandrina Mihai will compete for the podium.
This time we should see a good race also from a technical point of view.