Police and students in Torino

There always seems to be something happening with the police and students in Italy, this time it was in Torino. There was a national student protest on November 15 over cuts to education in the coming national budget. Student groups are concerned that access to education is being drastically reduced.
In Torino there was a massive police presence and streets in the centre of the city were closed to traffic from fairly early in the morning.  Police were in their riot gear with batons etc and there were massive police vans everywhere - does this antagonize protesters to take physical action? I think so.

In Piazza Castello many people didn't know what was happening and many people registering for the Turin Marathon became part of the student group by default.

Apparently there was some friction between the police and students, but it was all very orderly in Piazza Castello while we were there and what we thought was a flare was smoke from the castagne seller's fire.

Rob ha fatto la Maratona di Torino!!!!!

Rob ran in the Torino Marathon today, three weeks after the Venice Marathon!  He originally registered in the Torino marathon around the same time as the Venice marathon just in case he missed the Venice marathon.  Anyway, he finished the Marathon today in 4hrs 47mins -about 16mins faster than Venice.

He didn't tell anyone that he was going to do the marathon (apart from nostri figli) because he only really decided last night  and didn't change his diet etc -except he had a beer with dinner instead of a glass of wine :).

No more marathons while we are away! 

In Via Roma on the way to the start in Piazza Castello

 

 A very cold and bit nervous Rob

Getting colder hanging around

The start was about 30mins late and they had the usual national anthem etc.  These were the 'ordinary' runners the elite runners were a little further in front -Rob was put with the elite runners in Venezia by mistake :)  During the pre-race announcements Rob was mentioned as being a"straniero da Australia" who was participating.  I was videoing part of the start for family and happened to jag that bit :) The runners were pretty much all Italian whereas the Venice Marathon had a lot of people from other countries.

Rob near the finish line

Checking his time at the end

Pretty tired at the end.  Those legs didn't have much left.

Rob was very happy to have finished -just a little tired :)