European Athletics (EAA) – News – SENIOR MEN’S PREVIEW: Will there be Spain double delight again?

The senior men’s race will see Spain’s Alemayehu Bezabeh attempt to defend the title he won in Dublin 12 months ago.

Bezabeh didn’t win a single race on the track in the summer and surprisingly left the European Athletics Championship in Barcelona without a medal, despite going under 13 minutes for the 5000m with his Spanish record of 12:57.25 in early June.

However, he has bounced back in the last six weeks with some excellent outings in high-quality cross country races on home soil during November including a victor at the famous Cross Castellano-Manchego del Vino y del Queso in Quintanar de la Orden.

In the absence of Great Britain’s Mo Farah, last year’s SPAR European Cross Country Championships silver medallist and the 2010 European Athletics Championships 5000m and 10000m gold medallist is concentrating on the 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships and training at altitude in Kenya, Bezabeh’s main rival could be Serhiy Lebid.

The Ukrainian is arguably Europe's greatest ever cross country runner and he will be in Albufeira aiming to improve on his third place last year and take his ninth senior men's gold medal.

Lebid, now 35, is the only runner to have competed in every single SPAR European Cross Country Championships since they were established in 1994. “I’ll have to have a broken leg not to be on the start line,” joked Lebid recently.

“I also have good memories of racing at the Championships in Portugal. It was in Oeiras, near Lisbon, back in 1997 that I got my first medal in the event. I finished third and it gave me the confidence that I could challenge the best, it was the mental foundation of my eight triumphs later,” he added.

Lebid has shown in the past that he is capable of beating the best of the rest of Europe’s cross country runners on any surface and using a variety of tactics. The only question is whether time is starting to catch up with him.

If Lebid is not up to the task of taking on Bezabeh, then the challenge may come from his own compatriots as Spain has their senior men’s team has been on top of the podium for the last three years.

They look to have every chance of retaining their title with a squad that this time includes Ayad Lamdassem, fifth in Dublin 12 months ago, and Jesús España, the 2006 European Athletics Championships 5000m champion and the silver medallist behind Farah over the same distance this summer.

After finishing sixth at the 2007 SPAR European Cross Country Championships, España has decided to target the Championships again as he believes this year’s anticipated hard and relatively dry conditions suit him more than the softer courses presented by Brussels and Dublin in 2008 and 2009.

Of course, with their family and friends to cheer them on, the Portuguese runners could also be a force in familiar conditions.

The main Portuguese trial race, the Crosse de Torres Vedras on November 28, was won by Licínio Pimentel, who was 14^th in Dublin last year, and he will definitely be looking to crack the top 10 for the first time after four previous outings at the Championships.

Veteran Serhiy Lebid will be looking for a record ninth title in Albufeira.

He finished just ahead of Eduardo Mbengani, who was seventh in Dublin, while the 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships 1500m gold medallist and local middle distance legend Rui Silva, who also won a bronze medal in 2007 in his only previous outing at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships, was third in Torres Vedras.

Fourth-placed José Rocha was Portugal’s leading finisher at last year’s Championships in sixth place but has not quite shown the same form this winter. Nevertheless, the quartet – along with Yousef El Kalai and Rui Pedro Silva who booked their tickets down to the Algarve in earlier races – will be looking to impress in front of their home crowd.

Two men who have been winners at European Athletics Cross Country Permit Meetings at the end of November could also be contenders for a place in the top 10,  and perhaps even feature in the medals even if they are more at home in muddier conditions.

Hungary’s Barnabás Bene knows what it takes to win at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships having been the junior men’s gold medallist in 2004 and 2005 and then a winner the following year as an under 23.

Last month, he took the honours in inaugural Budapest Challenge meeting, a rehearsal for the 2012 SPAR European Cross Country Championships which will be staged in the Hungarian capital.

German steeplechaser Steffen Uliczka improved greatly on the track this year, making the final of the European Athletics Championships 3000m steeplechase where he finished seventh in a personal best of 8:25.29, and he was also an impressive winner over more rugged terrain in Tilburg last month.

The 26-year-old from Preetz has competed five times before at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships, but has never finished higher than last year’s 19th place but this year’s event could see him do better than ever before.

There are also, naturally, contenders from the three traditional European cross country powers of France, Great Britain and Italy.

The French federation have named the 2007 SPAR European Cross Country Championships junior men’s winner Morhad Amdouni to their senior team despite the fact that the in-form 22-year-old Corsican is still eligible to run in the under 23 race.

At the other end of the age spectrum, also representing Les Bleus will be the evergreen Driss El Himer.

Now 36, and an individual bronze medallist in 1998 and 2000, El Himer was the top French finisher in Dublin when he came home 11th.

Alongside Amdouni and El Himer on the start line will be Abdellatif Meftah, who currently has the fastest half marathon by a European runner to his name this year after he ran a national record of 60:46 in Lille on September 4.

Meftah, from Le Mans, was the leading European runner in the high-class Cross de L’Acier, France’s top cross country race and a European Athletics Cross Country Permit Meeting, on November 28 and is looking to do a lot better in Albufeira than his 23rd place last year.

British hopes will rest on the shoulders of Andy Vernon.

Andy Vernon was a good winner of the senior men’s races at the UK Trials on November 28 and the 2008 SPAR European Cross Country Championships under 23 silver medallist is Great Britain’s main hope for a top six place.

Italy will be sending a very strong senior men’s team that includes Gabriele De Nard, who is the second most prolific racer in Championships history after Lebid and will be competing in his 14th SPAR European Cross Country Championships, the consistent Stefano La Rosa, the 2006 junior and 2008 under 23 champion Andrea Lalli and 2010 European Athletics Championships 10,000m bronze medallist Daniele Meucci, the latter leading the Italian men home in Dublin 12 months ago with a ninth place finish.

There will also be a lot of interest in how Turkey’s Mert Girmalegeses goes. The former Selim Bayrak, having changed his name earlier this year, was the 2008 under 23 bronze medallist and 2009 European Athletics U23 Championships 10000m gold medallist.

He has had a number of good outings over 5000m on the track this summer and was a Team Europe representative over that distance at the IAAF Continental Cup in September.

The senior men’s race will be over 9870m (270m + 6 x Long Lap 1600m) with two small hills and a ditch on each of the long laps.

With the likes of Bezabeh, Lamdassem and España in their team, Spain appears to be the slight favourites for the team gold medals and as they bid for their fourth consecutive title.

The other two sets of medals look as though they will be very closely contested between four nations.

France won the silver medals in 2008 – and whose senior men’s team had a four-year winning streak between 2003 and 2006 – but just missed out last year when they finished fourth, five points behind Italy.

However, the messages emanating from that part of the world suggest that there is a special determination to get back on the podium.

Great Britain were last year's silver medallists but the absence of Farah obviously leaves them weaker. However, historically, getting four runners into the top 20 is usually enough to get among the medals and the British may just have enough strength in depth to pull that off.

Italy also look to have a good team that could quite conceivably get four men in the top 20 while hosts Portugal, fifth last year despite having three men in the top 14, could definitely utilise the advantages of running on home soil and get back among the medals after a two year absence.

 

European Athletics (EAA) – News