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World's best walkers gear up for Italian showdown
The 52nd edition of the Coppa Città di Sesto Race Walking meet, and fourth leg of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge, will have special significance this year, the 30th time that Sesto San Giovanni will host the women’s race.
The competition reads as a veritable who’s who of world race walking, with one of the best fields ever assembled set to line up in the Italian town.
While Australia will not be represented at the meet after an exhausting start to the year for our walkers, the event is shaping up as a highlight of the 2009 race walking calendar.
The entire podium of the Beijing Olympic Games will feature in the 20km women’s race with Russian reigning Olympic and world champion Olga Kaniskina, silver medallist Kjersti Plätzer (NOR) and bronze medallist and local hope Elisa Rigaudo (ITA) all in action.
The men’s race will be no less impressive with reigning Olympic gold medallists Valeriy Borchin (RUS) in the 20km and Alex Schwazer (ITA) in the 50km.
Twenty-kilometre European champion and world silver medallist Francisco Fernandez, local hero Ivano Brugnetti, Athens Olympics 20km champion Erik Tysse, fifth in both the Beijiing Olympics and the world championships in Osaka over 50km, and local Giorgio Rubino, fifth over 20km in Osaka will also compete.
“The Sesto race can be read as the re-match of Beijing but also a preview of the world championships in Berlin," said Antonio La Torre, the lifetime coach of Ivano Brugnetti.
"It’s a true spring world championship."
Women’s race:
Kaniskina comes to Sesto for the first time as a reigning 20km race walking Olympic champion. The Russian scored two unopposed wins in Osaka and Beijing, dominating the races from the early stages. Kaniskina is in impressive form this year as shown by her win in the Chinese leg of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge in Wuxi, where she clocked 1:28:00.
Kaniskina seems to be the clear favourite in Friday’s race where she will face Kjersti Plätzer and Elisa Rigaudo in a true re-match of Beijing. Plätzer won last year’s Sesto race and is looking to go to the podium of the Italian race for the eighth time in her long career. She won twice in the northern Italian competition in 2002 and 2008, finished second in 2003 and 2007 and third in 2000, 2001 and 2004. The Norwegian won the first two legs of this year’s Challenge in Chihuahua (Mexico) and in Rio Major (Portugal) and the Santa Eulalia 10km race in Spain, which was valid for the IAAF Race Walking Challenge. She currently leads the IAAF circuit rankings.
Elisa Rigaudo, reigning Olympic and European bronze medallist, made her debut this year in Chihuahua where she finished third and then continued her season with a win in the Italian Grand Prix in Pescara in mid-April where she clocked her 10km PB of 42:39.9. Rigaudo won the Sesto race in 2004 in the year of her overall win of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge. The Olympic bronze medal in Beijing gave the Italian star extra motivation and Sesto could be the perfect race for her to attack Betty Perrone’s 1:27:09 national record.
The field is completed by Claudia Stef from Romania, second in Sesto in 2004 and 2006 and overall Challenge winner in 2006; 2008 IAAF World Cup silver medallist Tatyana Sibileva; and sisters Tatyana and Evdokiya Korotkova, all from Russia; three more Olympic top-eight walkers of Beijing 2008 including Beatriz Pasqual from Spain (sixth), Olive Loughnane from Ireland (seventh) and Ana Cabecinha from Portugal (eighth); Vera Santos, third at the 2008 World Cup in Cheboksary and second on home soil in Rio Major behind Plätzer this year; and Ines Henriquez, both from Portugal (second in the current Challenge ranking thanks to third place in Rio Major and second place in Chihuahua); Sabine Zimmer-Krantz (eighth at the World Championships in Osaka) and Kristina Saltanovic from Lithuania (fourth in Rio Major in 2009).
Men’s race:
Valeriy Borchin comes to Sesto with a recent win in the IAAF Race Walking Challenge in Wuxi in 1:19:31 under his belt. With his Olympic triumph in Beijing in the 20km, Borchin crowned a perfect 2008 season in which he finished second in the 20km in the IAAF World Cup on home soil in Cheboksary and walked the distance in 1:17:55 in Adler.
The Sesto 20km event reads as a mouth-watering race between the two Olympic champions from Beijing, Valeriy Borchin and 50km champion Alex Schwazer, who has become an Italian sports star since his Beijing triumph in a new Olympic record of 3:37:09.
Schwazer is not a 20km specialist but he showed good form in the Italian Grand Prix in Pescara where he took a very narrow win over Giorgio Rubino (fifth at the world championships in Osaka over the 20km distance) in the 10km race in 41:01. Rubino will also be in the field and is looking to confirm his recent progress to 1:19:37 for second place in Rio Major which makes him the third best walker in Italian history behind Olympic champions Maurizio Damilano and Ivano Brugnetti. Rubino has now moved to the Walking School of Saluzzo to be trained by Sandro Damilano, the 'guru' of race walking with 44 Olympic, world and European medals won by his athletes during his coaching career.
Brugnetti will make his outdoor debut following his Italian indoor title in the 10km in Turin this winter and a training stint in Namibia. Brugnetti won the Olympic title in the 20km in Athens and the world title in the 50km in Seville in 1999 but could never win in Sesto during his long career in front of his friends and fans in the town where he trains every day. Last year Brugnetti finished runner-up behind Osaka reigning world champion and now retired Jefferson Perez, then went on to finish fifth in Beijing nine seconds off the Olympic bronze medal.
Francisco Javier Fernandez from Spain, European champion in Gothenburg 2006 in the 20km and triple world silver medallist over this distance from 2003 to 2007, has recently produced an impressive performance in the 50km clocking 3:41:02 at the Spanish Race Walking Championships in San Pedro del Pinatar. The Spanish walking star then went on to win in Santa Eulalia over the 10km. Fernandez, who is coached by race walking legend Robert Korzeniowski, won the IAAF Race Walking Challenge on home soil in Murcia in September 2008.
Norway will be represented by Erik Tysse (the younger brother of Kjersti Plätzer), Olympic and world fifth placer in the 50km and winner in Sesto in 2007 and by Trond Nymark, third at the 2008 World Cup in Cheboksary and winner in the 50km race in Chihuahua.
Also in the star-studded field will be Germany’s André Höhne, fourth at the 2005 world championships in Helsinki (he is the son of Christoph Höhne, Olympic champion in Mexico City 1968 in the 50km), Jesus Sanchez from Mexico, second in the 50km race in Chihuahua and fifth in the 20km in Rio Major this spring and 2006 European 20km bronze medallist Joao Vieira from Portugal (second in Sesto in 2006).
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