Now it’s your turn: Share your Riccione meet adventures
An Italian student in my wife’s ESL class says Riccione is known as a wild-and-crazy resort where, like Las Vegas, whatever “happens in Riccione, stays in Riccione.” But when it comes to the world masters meet, don’t be shy! Meet results barely scratch the surface, so take advantage of the miracle of email and send me your stories. If you want your name withheld, just let me know. How were you treated? What was the town like? Were your events run professionally? What was the weather like (after the opening hurricane)? Spill the beans! And thanks for your efforts!
5 Responses
I thought the competition was run professionally and efficiently. They used a laser measuring system, which made the competition move very quickly. This meet was much better run than the one at San Sebastian.
I only competed in one event (discus) and didn’t stay very long (3 days). I found a small hotel next to the stadium in Missano that was inexpensive but nice. I rented a car, so I didn’t have to take the bus (looked very crowded).
The jet lag was a killer. I am looking forward to competing in Sacramento in 2011?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù it’s only 1.5 hours away. However, I enjoy going to meets in faraway places. I doubt I would have visited Gateshead, Brisbane, San Sebastian, or Riccione as a tourist (I have friends in San Juan).
We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful competition. It is a meeting of genetic mutants?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù you don’t see those kinds of people at the mall.
Just returned today to Great Britain from Riccione, clutching my M50 sprint relay gold, and a mixed bundle of memories of the last fortnight. I spent the time as a competing athlete as well as a trackside photographer, so (along with Canada’s Doug Smith, who did similar) will have an unusual viewpoint, I guess.
The opening ceremony was fun up to the point the speeches began. Mind you, what I can only describe as erotic dancing by local gymnasts afterwards was worth the wait! The whole thing suffered from a complete lack of a big banner to tell the hundreds of tourists who watched the ceremony what it was actually all about. Best memory – persuading the Kiwi athletes to dance the hakka (Maori war dance) in the middle of the shopping mall. Didn’t really need much persuading, really!
The storms on the Tuesday morning, late evening and again on Wednesday were alarming. There was really no choice other than to cancel the cross country races, IMHO, but it was a pity that the bus drivers were told that the San Giovanni Stadium was closed too. I bet there were some heptahletes and decathletes who missed their events as a result. Bravo to the multi-eventers who battled through some atrocious conditions over the two days!
When WMA awarded the event to Riccione, I wonder what lies they were told about athlete warm up facilities? Effectively there were none. That’s right – NONE, unless you count a small patch of rough grass at both Riccione and Misano, and even less at San Giovanni. On the final day of the Champs, even the Riccione grass was locked and barred to athletes, because three guys from the local softball team had been given exclusive use! Well done the hurdlers for getting some hurdles placed in the back straight on heats and semis days – available when the track wasn’t locked up tight from noon to 2.30 every day.
Track officialdom was very Italian. That’s not a criticism. I know and can endure the Italian way of doing things, as a result of many years visiting and working in Italy, but some found it hard. Pity that many officials had such a slender grasp of the rules, though. Telling relay athletes that there was no acceleration zone allowed was plain stupid, and quickly over-ruled!
Misano was the place with the best atmosphere. At Riccione, it all fell flat, with field events happening where spectators couldn’t see them, and a big glass soccer-fan proof screen between the gradstand and the track. Why couldn’t medal presentations be done down on the track, though? There were no national anthems (great!), but no feeling of endeavour and achievement at times. Again, Misano did it better. San Giovanni’s medal area was pathetic. As far away from the fans in the stand as it could be!
Buses from Riccione to the stadiums were actually pretty reliable, but there were simply not enough! And why did they stop several evenings well before the events at Riccione and Misano had ended?
One could carp on endlessly about things like this. Friends on the official side of WMA and the LOC told me privately that there were many things that they were not proud about. Trouble is, no one seemed to me to want to take the initiative, or make decisions. WMA were clearly hoodwinked on several aspects of the facilities – particularly warm up, out of competition track access (non existent, though there was an offer to use a track 30km away in San Marino at one point!), and stadium catering – which ran over lunchtime only, and was almost non-existent at San Giovanni.
My thanks to my friends on the media side at Riccione, though. Daniele was really helpful throughout, and concerned for the needs of the media pack. The official photographers were an efficient and friendly bunch too, whose results were good and efficiently available. Their consideration for us free-lancers was appreciated, except for the guy at Misano who threatened to sue us for robbing him of his livelihood.
Nevertheless, the Riccione Worlds were the scene of some fabulous competition, and great cameraderie (or was it friendship in the face of adversity?) between the athletes. Did it come across credibly as a WORLD Championship? No, not really, especially when the local softball team could claim precedence over use of the facilities!
I now have the job of editing many thousands of pictures. Mostly they are of the Brits, but when I post them to the web, they’ll include plenty of USA, Aussie and Kiwi athletes too (and more). Just give me ten days or so! http://www.tomphillipsphotos.co.uk
And so to bed!
My two cents! The officals sucked out loud!!! Every comment, statement and direction started with “NO”. I have never been to a track meet where an athlete was secondary to an official. Can you imagine that Hurdlers were not allowed to warm up over hurdles!! Are you kidding me! I believe performances suffered because ATHLETES were not able to prepare themselves properly.
In my opinion this meet was disgraceful, to every athlete that competed in it, including the home town athletes. The tracks were far apart , you never knew what event was taking place, you couldn’t see your friends or country men compete and you couldn’t prepare properly.
I for one am happy that Sacramento has the meet for the year 2011, lets show the world how the meet is suppose to be, about the Athletes!!!!
I am just back from Riccione having stayed there 17 days. Being at a beachfront hotel was lovely and after a couple of days the management thawed out and was charming and helpful for most part but we did learn quickly that they would tell us the to go left when we should go right and that sort of thing – language barrier!
As for the meet – the 3 venues were miles apart. San Giovanni was out in the middle of nowhere – with dismal bathrooms, no real meal service, and the transportation was terrible. A test ride out there took us 2 1/2 hours, fortunately a British athlete at our hotel drove us out there for an 8:30 am start for the 5k run. The trip back took over an hour and 1/2 by a packed bus.
The Misano track was good but the warm-up facilities consisted of a road – and a few lumpy bumpy patches of grass. As to food – no clue – took my own, also took water as I never saw any water available for athletes – maybe it was there but it was never offered to me.
The races under 400m were all at Riccione – the so-called main stadium – except for the 4 x 400 relays. Traveling to the other venues to watch races was just out of the question – took too long and was physically exhausting – hours standing and waiting and standing on long bus rides. As a result I saw few events aside from those in which I participated.
The T-shirts were a joke – literally – a stupid cartoon – slow sellers – sale on the last day – I did not buy one – have enough junky ones for house painting already. The polo shirts were nice –
As for officiating – for me it was fine – I just run – do not hurdle, throw, or jump where warm-ups and practice facilites are so essential.
However having virtually no warm-up nor practice facilites was an insult to the athletes who spend a lot of time and money to travel to an international meet and are not there just to stand around and go through the motions. The meet program seemed to have been designed by folks who have little or no clue about masters track and field.
For the race walks -I heard that there was a lack of water and bathroom facilities for the non-stadia events. Frankly the lack of water was amazing – the only time I saw bottles of water was when the Riccione track was open for practice and some cases had been left out – apparently by mistake. There are NO water fountains – none – nada – so if you wanted water – you had to bring your own or buy it at an inflated price.
Aside from the first 3 days of dismal, cold, and very windy weather – why didn’t I bring a warmer jacket and pants – the weather turned back to warm and lovely, bright blue sky, warm sea water, got to work on my tan,took a trip to Florence and Ravenna, and had a good time despite the glitches. One needs to roll with the punches. A gold in the W 70 4 x 400 relay was a lovely finish to a good meet.
Many high jumpers. Because of that the bar was raised 6cm at a time. That was too much. It did not separate people properly. Also the pole vault mats were placed too close to the high jump pit. Many stradle jumpers had too change the angle of run up or use a shorter run up.
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