13 nations win medals at World Mountain Running Championships
It may not be as famous as the London Marathon, or as gruelling as the Iditarod Dog Sled Race in Alaska, but the World Mountain Running Championships is getting closer to both. The difficult uphill race was run on Velika Planina of the Kamnik Alps in Kamnik, Slovenia last weekend, and the event saw a record 39 nations participate.
Albania, Hungary, Japan, and Sweden made their first appearances at the 26th annual race. The World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) is also expecting Greece to enter a team in next year’s race, bringing the total up to at least 40.
The Mountain Running Championship offers four races of varying lengths. The junior women’s race is the shortest at 4.5km and ascends 430m. The women and junior men share the same circuit, an 8.5km long run with an ascent of 1035m. The longest of the four is the men’s race, which is 12km and ascends 1295m.
The athletes in the championship compete both as individuals and as part of a team. Of the 39 nations, 13 of them won at least one medal at this year’s race.
Turkish teammates, Yasemin Can and Burcu Dag, took gold and silver respectively in the junior women’s race with Adelaide Pantheon from France taking the bronze. All three women finished the race in less than 25 minutes, the only ones to do so. Can almost finished the race in less than 24 minutes, but had to settle for a time of 24:04.
The top two competitors of each country count towards the team results in the junior women’s team event, and the Turkish duo of Can and Dag had no trouble taking gold with their 1st and 2nd place finishes. Behind them winning silver was the Romanian team of 5th place finisher Cristina Negru, and 8th place finisher Denisa Dragomir. Bronze for the junior women went to Great Britain as Catriona Buchanan took 7th spot and Becky Lambson took 12th.
Yossief T. Andemichael of Eritrea crushed the rest of the field in the junior men’s race finishing first with a time of 42:30. The next closest competitor was Ridvan Bozkurt of Turkey with a time of 46:00. Taking the bronze was Jente Joly of Belgium.
The top three athlete’s results count towards the junior men’s and women’s team standings. Along with Bozkurt in 2nd place, Turkey had Ergin Ulas in 4th , and Sebahattin Yildirimci in 14th leading them to their third gold medal of the day. Winning silver was Germany with Toni Plazer in 8th, Fabian Alruan in 9th, and Matthias Dorfer in 16th. Paolo Ruatti took 11th , Massimo Farcoz 12th, and Andrea Debiaisi finished 18th , giving Italy the bronze medal.
In the women’s race, Andrea Mayr of Austria took first with a time of 49:30, the only woman to finish in less than fifty minutes. Valentina Belotti of Italy won silver, and Martina Straehl of Switzerland took the bronze.
Belotti got help winning team gold for Italy from teammates Antonella Confortola, who took 6th , and Maria Grazia, who took 9th. Winning the silver was the Swiss team powered by Straehl’s individual bronze medal, Claudia Helfenberger’s 8th place finish, and Bernadette Meier-B’s 10th place finish. The team bronze went to Russia with Svetlana Semova in 4th, Elena Rukhlyada Elena in 7th, and Elena Nagovitsyna in 25th.
The men’s finish was surprisingly close for such a long and arduous run, as a pair of Eritreans took the top two spots. Samson K. Gashazghi took first with a time of 56:25, and teammate A. Teklay Weldemariam was just behind him in second with a time of 56:28. Bronze medal winner, Geoffrey Kusuro of Uganda, was not far behind with a time of 56:57 and only three seconds ahead of another Eritrean.
After seeing five Eritreans finish in the top ten, it’s no surprise that Eritrea won the men’s team gold, Eritrea’s third gold of the day. After their gold and silver winners, Eritrea had Petro Mamu Shaku in 4th and Abraham K. Habtom in 6th. Eritrea also had Haben I. Mohamed take ninth and Mesfn T. Fissehatsion 12th, but only the top four results count toward the men’s team medals.
The other men’s team winners were the United States and Italy. The US only had one top ten athlete, Joe Gray in 10th, but with Max King in 16th, Tommy Manning in 18th, and Eric Blake in 27th, it was enough to take the silver. Italy won the bronze with Gabriele Abate in 11th, Marco De Gasperi in 17th, Bernard Dematteis in 24th, and Antonio Toninelli in 25th.
With such a diverse group of countries winning medals, and spectators numbering in the thousands, the event was considered a great success by the WMRA. Next year, the event will take place in Albania on September 11.
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