Antonella Palmisano raises the white flag
Antonella Palmisano raises the white flag
No dice for Antonella Palmisano: the 30-year-old from Mottola, who won gold in Tokyo in the 20-kilometer march, will not participate in the European Championships in Munich, scheduled for Aug. 15-21. “We are really short on training. Two weeks ago, most likely, I would have said I would be in Germany. Now, with the fact that the problem of falling asleep has returned to me more than the pain, the miracle has become almost impossible,” she told OA Sport.
“We will evaluate in these days with Patrick, but we are in the range of 0.1 percent yes and everything else no. We are now three weeks away from the 20 km in Monaco and my recovery process has become really torturous. On a physical level, compared to all the other years when I always tried to bring home races even by performing miracles, now it’s a different story, unfortunately. As a result, mentally I am not well at all and watching races from home is not easy. I have always had and dealt with physical problems, still achieving the main goals set; instead, I come from a long period in which of constructive I experienced nothing and about three weeks before the European Championships, after having already missed the World Championships, I found myself having to stop preparation. This is the first time something like this has happened to me, and on a psychological level it is hard.”
“In order to avoid immediate surgery, Dr. Dallari tried an alternative route with infiltrations of cortisone, saline water, Toradol and hyaluronic acid, with the hope that we could demulse this fibrosis and clear the sciatic nerve passage. I haven’t felt any pain for a week now, and I’ve always lived with those in my career, also having a very high pain threshold, but if my leg falls asleep in the race it’s a mess because I can’t march, but at best I can run and they disqualify me!”
Better to think about future projects, “They are many and very beautiful, but I need to experience quieter seasons than this one. For example, I would like to try a 35km, I would like to try an international 20km, I would like to repeat and win Budapest in 2023. But the three-year goal is to confirm myself in Paris 2024.”
