Federica Pellegrini explains how she spends the days before the Olympics. “From here to the race first of all there is the serenity, I’ll be in my bubble, concentrated and isolated inside the coach and family, bring everyone out of anxiety.” Well done Federica.
Monthly Archive for July, 2012
Page 3 of 4
The forced resignation of Antonietta De Martino at the Olympics is the last bad thing that struck the Italian athletics. It ‘s a sport in Italy which provides positive results only because a champion often emerges in a completely random sample. The reasons that the Italian Federation of Athletics uses to explain this disaster usually relate to the lack of sports at school (true) and the indifference of youth to a sport that is physically very tiring (false). This is a sport in which since the time of Sara Simeoni (olimpic medallist high jump) coaches of the best athletes are very often their husbands or parents, and where often the technical directors (with some exceptions) play a very marginal role. Furthermore, most athletes are training almost alone with the only support of their coach. In the third millennium, we are still at the time of the tutors that the aristocrats put alongside their children to provide an adequate culture. How can upgrade the training methods of these good coaches? How we can have a comparison with those used by the world’s strongest? Not to mention the emotional support so necessary in the sport of high level and totally ignored by Italian organizations of athletics. So here we do nothing while the U.S. Federations organized a workshop for his coaches to understand how one should train to avoid getting quarters and not on the podium, of course, it was found that in addition to aspects related to the biomechanics and nutrition third crucial element is the improvement of attention in the race. Someone will tell you never to Italian organizations ?
During the Olimpic Games American women have reached another milestone in sports: for the first time, they outnumber men on the U.S. Olympic team. The U.S. Olympic Committee released its roster for the London Olympics on Tuesday. There were 269 women and 261 men. Michael Phelps, who already has 14 Olympic medals, is one of 228 athletes making return trips to the games. Among those, there are 124 who already have medals; 76 of those were Olympic champions. This year’s oldest American athlete is 54-year-old equestrian rider Karen O’Connor, while the youngest is 15-year-old swimmer Katie Ledecky. There are 53 dads and 11 moms on the team, two sets of twins (Bob and Mike Bryan in tennis and Grant and Ross James in rowing) and seven who come out of the U.S. Army’s World Class Athlete Program. The Olympics start July 27. The U.S. team will have athletes competing in 246 out of 302 medal events. (From: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
Iosefa Idem and Alessandra Sensini are certainly two myths of Italian sport. Not only have they won so much in their athletic career but at the age of 47 and 42 years are again to be protagonists of tLondon 2012. The question that should concern everyone is where they find the will and strength to continue to be who they are. We are faced with two outstanding examples, endurance sports in which the consumption of the body is exhausting, are the living proof, if ever proof were needed, that there are no male or female sports, and finally show that the inner motivation can be a bottomless reservoir that continues to give energy and meaning to what began as simply the desire to excel through the youthful passion for sports.
In Italy one in four children aged between 6 and 10 years does not practice any sports.
The more we become skilled at something, the more we have to know how to manage our expectations, fo the reason they will tend to grow in an unrealistic way. For example, we can start thinking that we do not commit more errors and at this moment the presumption grow up and we pay less attention to what we should do, because “so much I am skilled.” The effect of this approach is that it takes a error and if we do not accept it twe will make another, which will be accepted even less, if it were an injustice and down for this hill until with humility we will start to come back.
Pistorius, l’atleta che corre i 400m con le gambe di carbonio, è una domanda aperta al mondo dello sport. Sono felice per lui e le sue battaglie che rivoluzionano l’atletica mondiale. Su La Stampa di oggi Carlo Vittori dice cose sensate e probabilmente corrette. I muscoli delle gambe producono nello sforzo acido lattico , tendono a indurirsi e la mente deve imparare a gestire questi momenti, Sono problemi che Pistorius non avrà mai. Nel contempo è un messaggio positivo per quanti nelle sue condizioni non devono rinunciare ad avere una vita normale (questo se mi permettete la semplificazione). Quindi che fare? Gambe e carbonio non sono proprio la stessa cosa. E’ una questione di etica. Personalmente sono convinto che siamo di fronte a una questione che nessuno prima d’ora si era dovuto porre. L’ingegneria umana si svilupperà di molto come mi auguro nei prossimi anni mentre la muscolatura umana resterà per i prossimi millenni sempre la stessa. Per cui finché Pistorius lotta per il minimo olimpico va bene (partecipa, siamo democratici e non razzisti) ma quando la scienza migliorerà le protesi che fare? Quando, come dice Vittori, un braccio bionico lancerà un giavellotto a 100m, che faremo? Ai posteri l’ardua sentenza
In athletics, whatever our level we are always there to talk about how hard and tiring is the training, we complain about the cold in winter and hot in summer, if the workouts are boring and easy or particularly challenging. Well you say, run, jump, do shots or leaps wear us and that’s why we complain; OK: but when is the moment of pleasure and joy? Taken from the “do more” give us these moments so positive and rewarding very rarely. Sport is cultivating our passion, which for a few also becomes a profession but that everyone should be an expression of actively engagement in something that is freely chosen because we like it. We can’t run 5 minutes to duty, we’ll do once or the first week, then let it stay because we don’t like what we feel. Running is a leisure activity that for many runners too often just gets search of the result: “I have to run 30 consecutive minutes to lose weight,” or “I have to run at least 90 minutes to make an half marathon.” These are just a few among the many MUST that we tell us along with the shirt, shorts and shoes. Let us pause to think about what are the burdens we carry on as we are, we will be amazed by how many. We then do the opposite, thinking about the joy of moving, the opportunity that we are giving to do what we like, to have found the time to do so; the same goes for athletes who should be pleased with being able to turn a passion into their core business. We must endeavor to transform the MUST in I LOVE IT. You have to go to feel the sensations coming from our body and appreciate the feelings and thoughts that the training we can provide. When we read a beautiful book, we don’t think certainly to our reading speed or how many books we can read in a year if we continue with this pace. We read and try to identify within the lives of the protagonists, we enter into the atmosphere of the story and we engage the emotions that we are born in. Training needs to be addressed in the same way, it is to listen and develop thoughts that are provoked by what we are doing, we will be focused on ourselves and not on others. Training is also the training of these mental abilities, which are those that support and enhance our motivation and confidence in wanting to continue. Few coaches require this commitment to their athletes while they are usually absorbed by the stopwatch and the technique, but for all athletes, by Stefano Baldini to novice runner is the head that controls the body or find hidden resources when we are tired. In short, while we train will leave from I MUST to develop joyful thinking.
Athletes that I prepared mentally to the London 2012 are now ready, it comes to pass few days that separate them from the arrival to London, where they will start the last and brief phase of adaptation to the field where the race will be held. The July 26 it will be closed and by that time there will be only one more day of official training and then the competition. Now is the moment of the calm, the preparation was completed, they must recovery from the fatigue and stress of a preparation started at least two years ago. They must do as the camels who are preparing for a journey into the wilderness, accumulate energy, relax the body but also the mind, being with people they trust and with whom it is easy to spend time. The tension will rise two/three days before and they will have to park it in the background of the mind and wake up on race day with the deep feeling of being ready to give the best of themselves.
Come credo che sia giusto dopo la finale di euro 2012 tutti i commenti sono stati positivi e tesi a valorizzare il lavoro svolto e il risultato raggiunto. Ci sarà tempo per la valutazione e per capire come si deve migliorare in previsione dei mondiali. I giornali di oggi riportano alcune idee interessanti e necessarie che Prandelli vuole realizzare e vediamo se Federazione e Club lo permetteranno. Mi è piaciuto il suo commento sulla opportunità di mostrare ancora più coraggio di quello che ha avuto durante gli europei. Questo in riferimento a non avere fatto giocare chi non era stanco e che avrebbe potuto inserire al posto ad esempio di Chiellini e di Motta. Forse il risultato non sarebbe cambiato ma non lo sapremo mai. La mia idea è che dovrebbe giocare chi sta meglio ed è più in forma in quel giorno. Capisco che non sia facile avere questo atteggiamento, ma se fossi il suo coach gli suggerirei di migliorare su questo aspetto.
