European Athletics (EAA) – News – Britton set to head Team Europe at Bupa Great Edinburgh Cross Country

Ireland's 2011 and 2012 SPAR European Cross Country Championships gold medallist Fionnuala Britton is set to head Team Europe at the Bupa Great Edinburgh Cross Country on Saturday.

The event will be staged at the picturesque setting of Holyrood Park in Scotland's capital.

The annual international match between Great Britain, Europe and the USA will feature a formalised European team selected by European Athletics for the first time and there will be a representative team in all six age categories.

Joma, the Spanish sports clothing manufacturer, are the sponsors of Team Europe.

"I won in Edinburgh last year so I feel as though I'm going there to defend my title, just like at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships last month,” Britton told European Athletics.

“I'm in good shape at the moment and was pleased with my run at the big Brussels race just before Christmas (where she finished second) so I hope I've still got that sort of shape after the holidays.

“Running in a team competition and representing Team Europe also makes this race a bit different and special."

No less than 16 of European Athletics' Member Federations are represented in the 36-strong squad, showing the strength of cross country running across the continent.

Runners will be converging on Edinburgh from all points of the compass.

All four Scandinavian countries are represented, as too are the Iberian cross country powerhouses of Spain and Portugal; there are runners in Team Europe from Ireland in the west, to Russia in the east.

Team Europe has been able to call upon nearly all of those eligible runners who featured in the leading placings at the 2012 SPAR European Cross Country Championships, which were held in Hungary less than a month ago.

In addition to Britton, the other two senior women's medallists, Portugal's Ana Dulce Félix and The Netherlands' Adrienne Herzog, will be part of Team Europe and the three other senior women all finished in the top nine in Hungary.

Italy's senior men's champion Andrea Lalli is unavailable but four of the men in the top 10 of the 2012 SPAR European Cross Country Championships will wear Team Europe's colours, including France's Hassan Chadi, who finished second behind Lalli.

Ukraine's Sergiy Lebid finished a disappointing 15th at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships last month but showed much improved shape at the famous Boclassic Sylverlauf in Bolzano, Italy, over 10km on the roads on Monday.

Lebid finished a good third in a race won by Ethiopia's reigning World Cross Country champion Imane Merga and a special invitation has been extended to the nine-time European Cross Country champion to compete for Team Europe.

“The third place came as a surprise. After three laps, I realized that I was in good form. I am as fit today as I should have been at the European Cross Country Championships in Budapest. It was great to finish on the podium especially because my last win (at the Boclassic) was eight years ago,” said Lebid, after Monday's race.

Also part of Team Europe is Spain's 2010 and 2011 SPAR European Cross Country Championships silver medallist Ayad Lamdassem, who won the Edinburgh senior men's race a year ago in 25.44.

Lamdassem struggled slightly in the frozen conditions at the Championships last month and finished sixth, but he showed some of his best form when finishing second to Ethiopia's Olympic Games 10,000m bronze medallist Tariku Bekele at the San Silvestre Vallecana 10km race in Madrid on Monday.

Like Britton, Lamdassem will also be looking to win for the second successive year in Edinburgh and will now be much more confident of his chances of repeating his victory.

With Portugal's Catarina Ribeiro replacing France's Clemence Calvin in the women's under 23 team and Denmark's Mikkel Dahl-Jessen being added to the junior men's team since Team Europe was first announced on 22 December, this year's teams are :

MEN

Senior: Hassan Chahdi (France), Carles Castillejo (Spain), Ayad Lamdassem (Spain), Bashir Abdi (Belgium), Milan Kocourek (Czech Republic), Sergiy Lebid (Ukraine).

Under-23: Jesper Van Der Wielen (Netherlands), Romain Collenot-Spiret (France), Antonio Abadia (Spain), Abdelaziz Merzoughi (Spain), Orjan Gronnevig (Norway), Abdi-Hakin Ulad (Denmark).

Junior: Isaac Kimeli (Belgium), Alexandre Saddedine (France), Dino Bosnjak (Croatia), Mikhail Strelkov (Russia), Johannes Motschmann (Germany), Mikkel Dahl-Jessen (Denmark).

WOMEN

Senior: Fionnuala Britton (Ireland), Ana Dulce Félix (Portugal), Adrienne Herzog (Netherlands), Sophie Duarte (France), Linda Byrne (Ireland), Lisa Christina Stublic (Croatia).

Under 23: Liudmila Lebedeva (Ukraine), Catarina Ribeiro (Portugal), Gulshat Fazlitdinova (Russia), Carla Rocha (Portugal), Ekaterina Matiunina (Russia), Viktoria Pogorielska (Ukraine).

Junior: Maya Rehberg (Germany), Mariia Khodakivska (Ukraine), Oona Kettunen (Finland), Agnes Sjostrom (Sweden), Anna Gehring (Germany), Heidi Maartensson (Norway).

 

European Athletics (EAA) – News