Elisa Rigaudo (ITA) in Rio Maior (© Marcelino Almeida)
Elisa Rigaudo, the overall winner of the IAAF Race Walking Challenge in 2004 and seventh at last summer’s World Championships in Helsinki, is in good shape and focussed on this year’s Challenge which has as its finale the IAAF World Race Walking Cup in La Coruna, Spain (13 – 14 May).
Training in Equador
Rigaudo’s last competition was on 18 February when she won the Italian indoor 3km title in Ancona in a time of 12:10.61, in what was just her second race of the year following on from her 10km walk win in Palermo (46:30) on 5 February.
“I am in good shape. I worked on quantity increasing the mileage. I trained over longer distances this winter to prepare for the next Challenge in 2006. But as I worked harder this winter I cannot be brilliant at this stage of the year”, said Rigaudo.
“Last year I usually faded in the final kilometres. For this reason I needed to increase the volume of kilometres in training to become more resilient.”
Rigaudo, together with much of the rest of the Italian team, will make her 2006 international debut in the IAAF Race Walking Challenge in Rio Major, Portugal on 1 April in preparation for La Coruna.
Rigaudo is a member of Sandro Damilano's training group which includes men’s 50km World bronze medallist, Alex Schwazer, Lorenzo Civallero and Patrick Ennemoser, who have all been training at altitude in Quito, Equador.
“It’s a very important season for me. I know the course in La Coruna where I competed in 2000. I hope to improve my PB because the La Coruna is fast. But my first goal this season is winning a medal at the European Championships in Gothenburg where I will face most of the athletes who will also compete in La Coruna.”
Schwazer looks to consolidate Helsinki breakthrough
While Rigaudo will be the likely star of the Italian women’s 20km team in La Coruna, Schwazer, who took a sensational bronze medal in Helsinki last summer and in the process smashed the national record by two minutes, with a time of 3:41:54, will carry the nations hopes at 50km.
Schwazer, a 21-year-old athlete from Calice, a small village near Racines in the Italian region of Alto Adige, has been guided by Italian walking guru Sandro Damilano since October 2003.
Alex was a promising ice hockey player but turned to athletics at the age of 15, running middle distance races. He began walking in the youth category. But at the age of 18 he turned to cycling. "I began late with cycling and I lacked tactics and experience", said Schwazer of his past cycling experience.
After returning to race walking, Schwazer now regularly trains in Saluzzo with Rigaudo, Civallero and Ennemoser, and competes for the Carabinieri Bologna military team. He is known as a hard worker in training. "I recover easily from the efforts. When I am at rest I have a heartbeat of 29 per the minute", said Schwazer.
Following his instincts
In Helsinki, coach Damilano advised Schwazer to slow down when he saw that he was catching up with the leading athletes. Damilano feared that his young protegé could fade in his attempt to reach the podium. Fortunately, Schwazer decided to follow his own instincts and won a World medal that not even the most optimistic Italian athletics pundit would have predicted before Helsinki.
After his unexpected feat in the Finnish capital, race walking legend Robert Korzeniowski said of Schwazer' s feat: "If an athlete finishes in the top eight in his first 50km in a big championships race it means that he is a talented walker. The fact that Alex reached the podium in his first big 50km race at this age means that he is really a superb athlete."
Post-Helsinki celebrations have not affected Schwazer's preparation for the upcoming season. "This autumn I feared I would lose my focus and miss training sessions. I was not used to it, and I had to say ‘no’ to many invitations. The bronze medal is now giving me extra motivation to work harder. I am training most of the year in Saluzzo under the guidance of Damilano."
It was the Saluzzo-born coach who convinced him to return to walking. "Sandro wanted me in his training group some years ago even when I hadn't won anything yet."
"This winter I worked on improving my technique which was my weakest point in the past. Every year I increase the volume of my training. I am planning to walk 4000 kilometres in the period of training from February to mid-May when I will compete in the 50km at the World Cup in La Coruna.”
“Now I walk 220km per week at a slow pace. I will gradually reduce the mileage in the coming weeks and work on increasing the speed in my training sessions. My first international race will be the 20km in Rio Major. Afterwards I will join my training group for a training stage in Equador,” explained Schwazer.
Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF
