Europeans on the track, Italy remains dry: Viviani and Fidanza do not go beyond the fifth place

A double fifth place that has the bitter taste of a big disappointment. In the two finals of the first day of the European Championships in Grenchen where Italy presented itself with the two world champions, two placings outside the podium arrived. Martina Fidanza in the Scratch and Elia Viviani in the Elimination failed to find the starting point to win a medal. In the Scratch the blue – in the morning busy launching the quartet – was unable to close on the escape of the Portuguese Martins and the Spanish Larrararte Arteaga, respectively gold and silver, and in the sprint for the bronze she was overtaken by the Polish Pikulik and by Dutch Van der Duin. “I knew I had trained well but this race is special – says Martina Fidanza – and starting with the world champion’s jersey complicates it even more. Now let’s think about tomorrow’s quartet. For us it is the main race, Great Britain did a great time in qualifying but we can certainly improve ours”. Different speech for Elia Viviani who once there were five left to play for the medals didn’t find the enamel of the best days to get on the podium. “I have the feeling that something was missing. I used the same report from the World Cup – analyzes Elia Viviani -. I missed the change of pace and I suffered. Once the sprint started, I saw that I was struggling to get out and so I threw myself under. Let’s hope it’s just the feeling from the first race and that we’ve broken the ice for the weekend with the Omnium and Madison scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.”

RECORD – Double Italian record for the Italian speed, both in the qualifications and in the quarter-finals of the team sprint event. On the first day of the European Championships on the Grenchen track, Ivan Quaranta’s boys improve again. In the preliminary rounds of the team sprint, the Azzurri (Tugnolo feverish, Bianchi and Predomo) finished in 6th place with a time of 44”256. The girls (Capobianchi, Vece and Barbieri) also make history as, on their first participation, they qualify for the quarter-finals with the Italian record (49”558). The race was then interrupted for both in the quarterfinals: the girls – still improving to 49″001 – from world champion Germany (Grabosch, Hinze, Propster), the boys – down to 44″071 – against France (Gillion, Vigier , Landerneau). Italy women finishing in 7th place while boys finish in 6th place. In the growth process of this sector, the first blue time in the women’s event and the constant improvement of the men’s trio enhanced by the talent of Mattia Predomo should be underlined. The 18-year-old born in Merano but residing in Bolzano on the launched in the last lap of the test, times in hand, is able to keep up with the best interpreters of the specialty.