Weightlifting Forums

Elle wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 5:16 pm

strapping wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 11:23 pm
Ficco 6/6 is a welcome surprise

Ficco doesn't train in Rome, coincidence?

What is the general feeling of the Italian Coaches regarding the Corbu brothers methods??

Guima73 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 8:05 pm What is the general feeling of the Italian Coaches regarding the Corbu brothers methods??

Good question.

It depends a bit on the level of the coaches: the less experienced coaches are usually very fascinated by the Italian system.

The more experienced ones, on the other hand, tend to be quite critical. And, given the results, something seems to have broken down a bit. We hoped that after the last four years there would be a change in mentality regarding competition management, but evidently that's not the case. Many athletes have physical problems (Delia, Piccinno, Miserendino, Abati, etc.), and Corbu says the girls struggle too much during competitions.

We coaches are a bit critical also because we don't know what happens at the Olympic training center. It seems like a huge black hole from which nothing emerges. Not even the courses explain the Italian system. And Corbu often makes highly critical public statements about the athletes (which I find inelegant for a coach).

These European Championships were a real setback. I hope it's the final one, demonstrating the need for a different type of management, both in training and in competition.

P.S. Sebastiano Corbu is the technical director and the only one who has a hand in the athletes' training. Gonario and all the other national team coaches are executors.

Elle wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 10:51 am The more experienced ones, on the other hand, tend to be quite critical. And, given the results, something seems to have broken down a bit. We hoped that after the last four years there would be a change in mentality regarding competition management, but evidently that's not the case. Many athletes have physical problems (Delia, Piccinno, Miserendino, Abati, etc.), and Corbu says the girls struggle too much during competitions.

We coaches are a bit critical also because we don't know what happens at the Olympic training center. It seems like a huge black hole from which nothing emerges. Not even the courses explain the Italian system. And Corbu often makes highly critical public statements about the athletes (which I find inelegant for a coach).

These European Championships were a real setback. I hope it's the final one, demonstrating the need for a different type of management, both in training and in competition.

P.S. Sebastiano Corbu is the technical director and the only one who has a hand in the athletes' training. Gonario and all the other national team coaches are executors.

It is difficult to make specific criticisms without knowledge of the training and competition management process. The only thing that can be said is that something isn't working.

Sometimes the attempt selection looks highly optimistic, sometimes the athletes bomb on what appears to be fairly reasonable attempt selection.

This could be due to all sorts of intermingling factors - peaking too early, trying to stay truly peaked year round (as opposed to 95% fit), trying too hard to peak and overshooting, psychological aspects, environmental issues and pressures such as a toxic team environment, nutritional periodization, recreational drug use (tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, pre-workout etc). All of these things can affect how well an individual, or a team shows up to competition in comparison to training.

Not saying all of these factors are necessarily true for Italy but they are things that I have seen before with other individuals and teams where it has had an impact.