Stefano Baldini Announces End of the Career
The Olympic marathon champion at Athens in 2004 and the legend marathon runner from Italy, Stefano Baldini has finally decided to end his impressive career.
Baldini’s announcement for retirement was the end of a long journey which started three decades ago. It all started for him when his elder brothers offered Baldini to join their running group, which later on paved the way to his glorious career. At the start
of his career, the best runner among eleven siblings of Baldini’s family was Marco, his elder brother who had a PB of two hours and sixteen minutes for the marathon distance. During his career as a marathoner, Baldini ran impressive 180,000 kilometres both
in trainings and the competitions. This amounts four and half times of the circumference of the earth.
Baldini initially planned to end his career at a 10km race at Giro al Sas on 9th of October, however amid an injury he had to pull out of the Trento race. In order to say goodbye to his friends and fans, the Italian legend made a lap of honour
before the 5000m race won by Edwin Soi the Olympic bronze medallist. Throughout his career, Giro al Sas has been among the favourite tracks of Baldini to run at. While talking to the swarm of reporters who had gathered to picture the legend for the last time
when he was on track, Baldini thanked Gianni Demadonna, who had guided him throughout his international career. He further told the media correspondents that he ran twelve times on the tracks of Giro al Sas and won three times in 2002, 2004 and 2006. He said
that he still vividly remembered the great race at the said track, when he had been recently back after wining Athens Olympics in 2004.
Last week, after a special lunch in Milan, Baldini got the chance to thank all the athletes who had been a source of inspiration for him and who extended him the most needed help at the crucial times. The legend runner said that he was sad to end his career
at the age of mere 39 however; he said that it was the right time for doing so as according to him, he had been too long in the field and there was no one in the whole Italy who could beat him. He told the media personnel that he wanted to retire from the
international career right after the Beijing athletics but later on, he decided to take on with the sport for two more years.
The athlete thanked all of his coaches one by one, who had been there to support and guide him for the big challenges he had to face during his career. Starting from the first coach, Emilio Benati who trained him until 1992, he went on expressing his good
wishes for Luciano Gigliotti, Francesco Panetta and Alessandro Lambruschini. He said that he could not have emerged as a world class athlete, had the support from all these legends not been there for him throughout his career.
He told the media personnel that under guidance of Gilgliotti he learned a lot and made a lot of changes with the way he used to run. Luciano Gigliotti, who had himself been two times Olympic marathon gold medallist in Seoul during 1988 played a crucial
role in the success of Baldini for bagging the Athens title in 2004. He said that amid he was quite different from rest of the athletes; Gihliotti had to tailor a different suit for him.
“Knowing his athletes at their best is perhaps the biggest secret of Gihiliotti as a world class coach” said Baldini.
At the end of his remarks and thanking note for his coaches, Baldini said that he had plans to remain involved in the world of athletics but in a different capacity. Sharing his aims about his future, he said that he was planning to join some company for
whom he had been contributing for years.
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