The second weekend of September 2025 was a special for me, and there are many reasons for that.
Starting new chapter of my life as o-coach, I set my target as being able to help determined and orienteering loving athletes to grow their skills in our sport, and when it comes to be working with a team I feel a special magic of being inside the motivated group of people who wants to come the new level and achieve highest results together. There is always a unique spirit around relay – specially emotional, specially exciting – it is a clear target for a club, and therefore Italian Championships in forest relay was set as one of the main aims for PWT Elite team for this year.
The work toward this goal, together with other individual goals of each runner of the team, was a long and exciting way, full of interesting discovering for me and hard work for athletes I worked personally with, who took a completely new path in their life – to learn orienteering technique – a special path that requires a lot of determination and self-awareness. For me this was a special target as well – to help them to improve their way of doing orienteering so that they could make a difference to their performance, results and the feeling of the process. I tried to give all my knowledge, but also every week, more into our work I got more and more inspired by their efforts, involvement into the process, excitement of learning new, doing mistakes and learning again and more. And then we needed to unite all these efforts into one, at the day of relay.
But unfortunately tragic August interrupted our plans and took Mattia away from us. I have never expierienced that pain of losing an athlete, talented, determined, with a big soul… Still difficult to find any words…day by day I couldn’t stop asking “why?”, “what for?”… and I could not even imagine how much harder it hit Mattia’s family, his friends and all the club. And my heart only wanted to support and help all and everyone to find the power to stand up, to raise, and go through it.
It was not easy, but the club has taken decision: we go to the Champs, and we compete! In my opinion, relay is a great invention of the individual sport like orienteering, because even doing individual work in the forest at every leg it still brings a strong team feeling, feeling of presence your teammates, big support, and huge opportunity to give and get support, care, express your feelings. This time the result was unpredictable, cruel August made its job to mess the preparation, but… the day we all met together in Parma, the fire in the eyes of each member of the team whispered me something…
I have seen so many relays and participated in so many, but giving my experience to the team as a coach and being there with athletes during the competition is a special feeling. What I saw was just astonishing. The teams of three, both men’s and women’s, just turned to be a one united power! Three absolutely brave and resolute runs in men’s team (Fabio Amadesi, Marco Di Stefano, and Sebastian Inderst) made an amazing result of bronze medal. And three furious and completely unstoppable runs in women’s team (Annarita Scalzotto, Caterina Dallera, and Jessica Lucchetta) didn’t give any chance for the rivals: gold with more than 6 minutes in the lead (look results and also read about us at FISO.it and PWT Italia)
This is a historical victory for the Women’s elite team, after several years of chasing the gold medal. And we dedicate this success to the memory of Mattia. Last year Mattia won the gold medal with the men’s team, and this year Jessica continued his path and took gold with Annarita and Caterina in women’s relay. I’m specially happy for Jessica’s perfomance, the consistent work she did during this year made a significant change in her orienteering, and I admire her strong character that didn’t leave a chance for the rivals this day. And I’m really happy about the team’s result, but even more I’m happy to actually see the people dedicated into their improvement in orienteering skills, and truly going for their dreams and for their team success. I’m honored to put my efforts to help you on your way.
Do you think there is a place for a miracle in orienteering? Would be great to discuss. Every second during the race the athlete is being in charge of their orienteering, decisions, actions, and thus creates a process and, consequently, a result. I just saw another confirmation that everything is possible when you go for your dream with all the heart! And I see there is no limits for growth, if you desire it.
Big thanks to Gabriele for making all this possible! Thanks Nicolo for being with us!
PWT, let’s go for more!
Photos by Gabriele Viale and Annarita Scalzotto
Svetlana Mironova | Elite Orienteering Technique 
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