Bernard Dematteis will chase a third individual title in four years on Saturday at the European Mountain Running Championships - and his bid for glory will be on the toughest of home courses.
Italy are the host nation, with the event being staged in Arco, a commune in Trentino in the north east of the country, and there will be a great deal of hope and anticipation about their prospects.
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Incredibly, Italy have won the men’s team title 19 times in a row in its different formats (European Athletics gave it this official title in 2002), with their latest success 12 months ago in Porto Moniz.
After his successes in Borovets and Gap in the two years before, Dematteis, 26, was the favourite for a hat-trick then but he ended up in seventh (1:03.51.00) as Norway’s Johan Brugge (1:02.35.00) took gold after a superb second half of the race.
The strength of the Italian mountain runners shone through as Alex Baldaccini was third (1:02.56.00) and Xavier Chevrier (1:03:41.00) was sixth and along with Dematteis, their 16 points combined to win them the team title again from Switzerland (27) and France (33).
That Italian trio return in a squad of six made up by Luca Cagnati, Dematteis’s twin Martin and Cesare Maestri.
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Switzerland’s David Schneider, last year’s runner-up in 1:02:49.00, also returns and will prove a big threat to the Italians as will Julien Rancon, who was eighth and the leading Frenchman in 2015 (1:04:29.00).
The setting for the championships is spectacular.
Arco is situated at the heart of the northern Lake Garda region and is the world capital of free climbing each year, hosting the Rock Master climbing world sports competition.
The “up and down” course will take the athletes through the old town, the castle area, the olive groves and the Colodri mountain area.
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The senior men’s race is over 12.31km and the women will compete over 8.54km with Alice Gaggi, who was the leading Italian last year in 10th, back to lead the home challenge. Great Britain’s women will be looking to successfully defend their team title, which they won with 18 points from Austria (23) and France (38).
Rebecca Hilland was not in that squad but she is this time after winning the British trials at Whinlatter Forest in Cumbria at the end of last month in 37:00 and as she told Britishathletics.org.uk, her ‘home’ conditions work to her advantage.
“I am fairly new to mountain running,” said Hilland. “But I live in Norway and you can’t go out for a run without going up a hill.”
The men’s junior race will be over 8.54km, with Türkiye the defending team champions, and the women’s event is 4.03km, where Germany will aim to keep hold of their crown.