19th May 2013 01:05
By the time they're finished, Anisya Kirdyapkina and Sergey Kirdyapkin won't have room for the furniture – the medals will have taken over.
Olympic, World, European Cup and other trophies have piled up in the trunk, Anisya finally converting in this competition a pair of silvers into gold.
At the beginning, a score of walkers went through 2k in 9:20, comfortable for this array of talent.
That wasn't going to last long, and it didn't.
Gradually, the rubber band between the Russian four and Elisa Rigaudo got stretched to the point where at 7k (31:17), the Italian had all but snapped it.
But Rigaudo could see at the turn that it was even further back to fourth. In fact, it was far from obvious who that was with the leaders passing back markers for the second time already.
Clearer was the fact that Kirdyapkina was leaving team-mates, Marina Pandakova, Vera Sokolova, and Irina Lumanova to fend for themselves.
She was 30m ahead at 9k, and one lap later at halfway, (44:06) had transformed 30m into 30 seconds.
Rigaudo was going solo a minute later, and then the first group sporting different countries followed in the Italian's wake.
In fact, for the first time in the Italian's illustrious career she called it a day at 12k, clearly in distress.
Two Portuguese a Ukrainian and one each from Spain and Italy were on the hunt once she moved to the side of the road.
With three to go, the winner was 1:05 ahead of her three friends, and there was an entire length of street (200m) to Ana Cabecinha having creviced daylight, and in the afternoon heat it was very bright, between her and the chasers.
Over the next 150m came Elenora Georgi, (Italy), Ines Henriques (Portugal), Lyudmyla Olyanovska (Ukraine), Beatriz Pascual (Spain), Vera Santos (Portugal) all suffering, but all chasing top 10 places.
Sokolova decided it was time to go when she heard the bell, and quickly opened up a decisive gap on Pandakova and Lumanova.
The former world record holder was rewarded with silver to go with the gold she won two years ago. And third was won in a sprint-off by Pandakova, and to say Russia dominated the team event doesn't tell the half.
All four were home two minutes before Cabecinha delightedly crossed the line for fifth.
Kirdyapkina betrayed an ambition far less than she achieved.
'I wanted to finish at least second Russian, and no further back than sixth. During the race the heat hurt my head, but now I will be a part of the next World Championships in Moscow.'
Italy's Giorgi reckoned that coming from Milan was just as painful.
'It's raining at home,' she said, 'but this was probably my best race, even though I have gone faster.'
Complete results.