WORLD MOUNTAIN RUNNING TROPHY 2008
CRANS MONTANA SWITZERLAND
There were some encouraging performances from the Welsh juniors at the World Mountain Running Trophy in Crans-Montana Switzerland on Sunday 14th September, in what turned out to be our country's last involvement in the event as an individual nation along with Scotland, Northern Ireland and England following the acceptance at the World Mountain Running Congress meeting to upgrade the event to: WMRA World Mountain Running Championships, and under IAAF rules for competition for Championships, we along with Scotland, Northern Ireland and England will have to compete as a combined GB & NI team at these championships.
The uphill races were run in generally damp and overcast conditions, literally running in a cloud, finishing at 5000ft, the junior women ran a distance of 04.27km with a 332m ascent, Gina Paletta had an excellent run to finish 5th in 24:04:9 with 30th Elinor Kirk 26:32:7 and 39th Aneura Phillips 27:59:5 the team finished a very respectable 7th, congratulations to England's Laura Park who won the race in 22:34:2 in doing so she also led the team of Heather Timmins and Hannah Bateson to success.
The junior men ran a distance of 8.33km with a 733m ascent. In his first competitve mountain race, Dewi Griffiths having at one stage led the race finished in an excellent 7th place with a time of 43:07:4 with 27th Nathan Hardee 45:19:1, 35th Ricky Challinor (Ricky fell at the start of the race when he was accidently tripped by another competitor) 46:04:6 and 44th Joshua Harries 47:04:6 the team as the junior women finished in a very respectable 7th position. The race was won by Norway's Sindre Buraas in 42:12:1.
The senior women as the junior men ran a distance of 8.33km with a 733m ascent, the Welsh team were led home by Anna Bartlett who has been suffering with a back injury for most of the year and did very well to get back into form for the event finishing 60th in 53:31:1 followed by 65th Jackie Lee 53:54:4, 74th Sarah Ridgway 54:55:7 and 83rd Andrea Roberts 57:45:5, the team were placed 15th. The race was won by Andrea Mayr (Austria) in a time of 43:57:9, Wrexham's Anna Frost running for her native New Zealand finished 10th in 47:35:3.
The senior men ran a distance of 11.97kms with a 1046m ascent, the Welsh team were led home as they have been for several years now by Tim Davies 84th in 62:52:4 closely followed by 86th Matthew Collins 63:05:1 with Tim's brother Andrew 89th in 63:26:9, 106th Rhodri Buffet 64:37:3, 117th Richard Roberts 66:15:1 and 121st Afan Humphries 67:07:5. The team were placed 19th. The race was won by Jonathan Wyatt (New Zealand) in a time of 55:03:8, his 6th World title.
Overall a satisfactory result from the event for our athletes, who ran as well as they could in the conditions and surface which was more suitable for road and trail than the usual mountain race surface to which we are accustomed to.
Well done everyone.
ARWEL LEWIS
MOUNTAIN RUNNING SECRETARY
