Paolo Mottadelli (MOZ)

With a great delay, pushed by the recent Olympic spirit, here is the annouce of my 4th Italian Decathlon Title.

It was not a great performance (7215 points) but it was enough to win a valuable national title.

I was recently watching time ever records in number fo national title wins…. well, I’m still very far from Franco Sar, who won 8 times between the 50s and the 60s

Anyway, this title was a nice shine in the dark sky of my season, due to a long time injury and poor of good performances. The only good race, during the last Decathlon was a PB in long jump: 7.25. It already time to thinj about the next season and start working hard!

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Yesterday evening 3 brave guys did the 100 minutes Decathlon in Besana… I suppose that nobody who was not there can imagine how weather conditions were

I’m waiting for the event photos, and it will be evident, I’ll post about it; anyway, it was raining a lot, and less that 10 degrees, certainly not a good day for a decathlon.

Despite that, Lukas, Matteo and Paolo pushed all their best energies; they absolutely had no fear ;-), great job guys!

Results: note that they had some points penalty because they exceeded the 100 minutes for some seconds

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With this post I would like to thank Francis Mayet, who offered me some pictures about Talence Decastar competition. Here you can find 2, but, as he told me, a lot more is coming… just need to resize them and select the best ones

So thank you very much Francis for the passion that you put in our Combined Events world, and, sure… your photos are really cool!

Here you can find Francis’ photos of Decastar , and here his Decaboura Project Website.

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As I was injured, in the second day I could only compete in throws events. Here are two pictures about them (by the way.. it was my discus PB.. 45.15 )

These pics were taken from Talence Decastar Official Site

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My first time in Talence Decastar was not a lucky experience, indeed! Unfortunately I got injured during my second attempt in the long jump event, when I pushed on the board much more than my foot could tolerate, hurting my left heel.

I immediately felt some pain, but not so much, because my foot was warm.. The problem revealed after the Shot Put event, when, warming up for the High jump, I could not even lean my heel on the floor.

I tried to resist, in order to finish the first day and waiting for the next morning, so I cleared 1.74, 1.77 and 1.80 at the first attempt (it never happens :-), mumble mumble…) and stopped that event. Later I run the 400 and hoped…

… not well enough! Yesterday morning my heel conditions were even worse (as I expected, I admit) and I could not run 110 hurdles, neither do Pole Vault. The good thing is that I set my PB in Discus: 45.15 and did a good Javelin: 57.74.

The crowd was terrific here in Talence, and that is the reason why I would have loved to finish 1500 meters, together with such strong guys. So I started and struggled for 1000 meters, using 1 leg and a half, before not being able to go on :-).

It was a pity not to be able to set a decathlon PB here in such an amazing challenge but I am very happy to have been here. Hey: this meeting is really fantastic, the atmosphere is magic and French People are so fired for combined events!

The Decathlon was won by Andrej Kravchenko with 8553 points and the Heptathlon by Lyudmila Blonska with 6437 points. More to come about results….

I really hope to have my second chance, in no more that one year, to tell ‘merci beaucoup’ to French People with a great rocky decathlon!

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Here is a picture about Talence Decastar Meeting presentation

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Today we (me and Lukas) arricev in Talance. It has been a good journey… we experienced a flight on a very little palne… not suitable for poles transport, sure!

And, I have to say, not suitable for my back problems! It was too small for a standard tall man, and even worse for a 1.95m guy… with some problems at his back

Anyway, we arrived in the meeting Hotel, and met some of the athletes taking part of the competition, in particular: Rudy BOURGUIGNON, Pelle RIETVELD, David GERVASI, Andrej KRAUCHANKA, Roman SEBRLE and Maurice SMITH.

Tomorrow we will have a work out in tghe morning and the official presentation in the afternoon. Well, I hope that this presentation will not be so long as expected…. 3 hours from 5pm to 8pm, the day before the race!

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Tomorrow I’ll leave to Talence. OK, everything is ready. During the last 5 days my back had some problems, and it is not OK yet, but I hope it will be in 3 days.

I will be a fast competition, I suppose, because we will be 12 athletes. The best thing is that there are several world class guys, and I’ll try to be pushed by being on the same track!

No, I’m not doing any prediction, nor saying which kind of result I would like. We will see after each event what’s going on

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This is my first post about the 100 minutes Decathlon. I am writing about this special event because on the next 27th of September we are organizing it, here in my town: Besana in Brianza and I am going to compete.

I have to say that I am a great fan of this kind of events, because I think they can make Combined Events and, Athletics in general, more understandable to non technical people. A lot of people, infacts is used to watch football matches (especially in Italy ) that last 90′ minutes plus 15′ break… well, 100 minutes decathlon is exactly what they are used to: 85′ of athletics action and 15 minutes break!

In this post I would like just to recount my first (and only) experience in this event. It took place in Pavia in 2004 and it was amazing for me; I competed together with Luca Ceglie and Marzio Viti.

Here are my results:

100\\\' Decathlon: Pavia 2004

Since then I wished to repeat that good experience, but always had some other reason to prepare or to compete for :-(. So this is the the time I was waiting for long! This time we will be 6 athletes (unfortunately i don’t know yet exactly who), so there will be 2 heats, each one for 3 athletes. I’ll write a single post just to explain some technical matters; for now I’m just doing some predictional evaluation.

The most important thing to say is that I will compete in the Talence Decastar just 4 days before (22nd and 23rd), and I am not supposed to be as rested as I should be!! I just hope to have a lot of fun in this 100′ Decathlon, in order not to feel too much tired. Anyway, I would like to use a very different approach for my 400 meters; last time I run in 58”08, that is almost 10 seconds slower that my PB!! It was because I did not know how I would have felt for the ’second day’. This time, I’ll try to get a lot of points more in 400, and hope not to loose so much in the last 5 events. Considering my actual good condition in middle distances runnin, 52” could be the right time.

Anyway, we have still to see how I am coming out from that Decastar and then maybe do some more realistic considerations! My coach would say: “Non facciamo i conti senza l’oste”!!!

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Well, firts of all: I don’t know if everybody think that it is a good idea; it is definitely to me.

Last Saturday I made a 1500 meters competition… yes, with the real 1500 meters runners, not among other decathletes!

In my opinion it was such a training experience and I’m sure I’ll repeat it; I run in 4′48”53, that is 79 cents more then my PB (I’m not a good 1500 runner.. ).

The best feeling is the way I can approach the distance without the physical and mental stress of a Decathlon ending race. Yes, it is simpler to run in this way, but the positive effect is that next time I’ll know that 1500 meters are not such a monster, as decathletes (especially in Italy) often think.

I can imagine that someone might think that I’m writing obvious things, but I would like to report my personal experience about it, and say that I’m definitely going on with this approach, hoping to defeat the monster and start running 1500 as a distance

…to be continued …

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