The first article after quite a long time will be about my horrible performance last weekend. The Italian championships where my main goal in the fall. Even if i felt quite tired after a hard WOC week, preparation went well and i was sure to have fast legs. I was very confident when starting my race as last man in men elite class. But the forest was not as i expected. Visibility was quite reduced in many parts and runability was not so good because of steep valleys and tough undergrowth. I missed a lot already on the first controls and could not find the right flow. After this, some good parts alternated with huge mistakes. On the last loop my speed dropped and I felt tired. Maybe the worst competition in the last years. In the finish I was more than 10 min behind the winner Marco Seppi. My teammate Michele Tavernaro was second and Mik Caraglio 3^rd. Congratulations!

It was time for revenge on Sunday when we (Giacomo, Michele and myself for our Gronlait Team) had to defend our relay title from 2008. But I should not be our day. Giacomo did not have a good run and sent me out a little behind, I did again to many mistakes and could not gain any time, just Michele did a good race on the third leg. But this time we had no chance again a impeccable US Primiero Team (Manuel Negrello, Carlo Rigoni and Giancarlo Simion). The silver medal was not exactly what we expected.

So as Giacomo wrote on his blog: no win in Italian Championships this year for Gronlait. But we will be back stronger next year!

Now I have to analyze more exactly what went wrong in my orienteering and look forward to next weekend. It is time for Austria relay championships. Hope to be ready this time ;-)

Some pictures form the weekend by Luigi Girardi

Results: long distance, relay