2013 European Cross Country Championships

The 2013 European Cross Country Championships was the 20th edition of the cross country running competition for European athletes which was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 8 December 2013. The senior individual winners were Alemayehu Bezabeh of Spain and Sophie Duarte of France.[1] A record 571 runners from 37 nations entered the competition, making it Serbia's largest international athletics event in over forty years.[2]

2013 European Cross Country Championships
Organisers	EAA
Edition	20th
Date	8 December
Host city	Belgrade, Serbia
Events	6
Distances	9.880 km – Men 8.050 km – Women 8.050 km – U23 men 6.025 km – U23 women 6.025 km – Junior men 4.000 km – Junior women
← 2012 Budapest 2014 Samokov →

In the women's senior race Ireland's Fionnuala Britton was the defending champion,[3] but she failed to win a third straight title and ended the race in fourth. Sophie Duarte took the lead in the penultimate lap and ran on her own over the last lap to take her first European gold medal at the age of 32. The 2011 minor medallists Ana Dulce Félix of Portugal and Great Britain's Gemma Steel closely raced each other in the final lap, with the British runner gaining the edge over the Portuguese on this occasion. Steel headed the British women to the team title, while Duarte led France to second and Spain took the bronze medals.[4][5]

Andrea Lalli entered the men's senior race as champion and fellow 2012 medallists Hassan Chahdi and Daniele Meucci were also present.[6] None of the three reached the podium on this occasion. The leading pack was soon whittled to two runners: 2009 champion Alemayehu Bezabeh and (despite an early fall) Polat Kemboi Arıkan of Turkey. Bezabeh extended his lead to over twenty seconds by the time he crossed the finish line. Arıkan was a clear second and British athlete Andy Vernon produced a fast finish to edge Belgium's Jeroen D'Hoedt to the bronze medal. Bezabeh headed up the Spanish team victory, followed by D'Hoedt's Belgium and Vernon's British side.[7]

In the under-23 races Pieter-Jan Hannes of Belgium won the men's race and Great Britain topped the team rankings.[8] Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands was dominant in the women's under-23 race, where the British under-23 team easily won the team gold with five women in the top eight.[9] The junior men's race saw Turkey's Ali Kaya come out on top in a two-man race against Belgium's Isaac Kimeli.[10] Women's junior champion Emelia Gorecka won a fourth straight junior team title for Great Britain and also her fourth straight podium finish (she previously won the title in 2011). She was unrivalled and won by a margin of ten seconds.[11]

Three of the six event winners (Alemayehu Bezabeh, Sifan Hassan and Ali Kaya) were born in East Africa and gained European citizenship. Three of the individual silver medallists were also born outside of Europe: Arıkan in the men's senior race, Kimeli in the men's junior race, and Sofia Ennaoui in the women's junior race. This prompted concern of growing African participation in the European event – the falling interest in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, partly due to a prolonged period of African dominance of the competition, had recently led to the world event being reduced to a biennial event.[12][13] Excitement over Bezabeh's large margin of victory was also tempered by discussion of his doping ban stemming from Operación Galgo, which had expired at the beginning of the year.[14]

Race results

Senior men

Individual race

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time (m:s)
	Alemayehu Bezabeh	Spain	29:11
	Polat Kemboi Arıkan	Turkey	29:32
	Andy Vernon	Great Britain	29:35
4	Jeroen D'Hoedt	Belgium	29:35
5	Hassan Chahdi	France	29:40
6	Mohamed Marhum	Spain	29:46
7	Richard Ringer	Germany	29:49
8	Bashir Abdi	Belgium	29:53
9	Koen Naert	Belgium	29:54
10	El Hassane Ben Lkhainouch	France	29:56
11	Iván Fernández	Spain	29:58
12	Tom Farrell	Great Britain	29:59

Teams

Rank	Team	Points
	Spain Bezabeh Marhum Fernández Antonio Dávid Jímenez Antonio Abadía Javier Guerra	31
	Belgium D'Hoedt Abdi Naert Soufiane Bouchikhi Lander Tijtgat Abdelhadi El Hachimi	49
	Great Britain Vernon Farrell Keith Gerrard Adam Hickey Charlie Hulson Frank Tickner	60
4	France	66
5	Germany	69
6	Ireland	90
7	Turkey	105
8	Italy	151

Senior women

Individual race

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time (m:s)
	Sophie Duarte	France	26:34
	Gemma Steel	Great Britain	26:39
	Dulce Félix	Portugal	26:41
4	Fionnuala Britton	Ireland	26:45
5	Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal	Norway	26:52
6	Almensh Belete	Belgium	27:00
7	Julia Bleasdale	Great Britain	27:02
8	Veronica Inglese	Italy	27:12
9	Carla Salomé Rocha	Portugal	27:13
10	Iris Maria Fuentes-Pila	Spain	27:17
11	Lauren Howarth	Great Britain	27:18
12	Clémence Calvin	France	27:25

Teams

Rank	Team	Points
	Great Britain Steel Bleasdale Howarth Steph Twell Katie Brough Lauren Deadman	35
	France Duarte Calvin Christine Bardelle Laila Traby Laurane Picoche Claire Perraux	54
	Spain Fuentes-Pila Diana Martín Lidia Rodríguez Marta Silvestre Teresa Urbina Alba García	61
4	Italy	97
5	Portugal	109
6	Ireland	115
7	Turkey	117
8	Czech Republic	197

Under-23 men

Individual race

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time (m:s)
	Pieter-Jan Hannes	Belgium	24:02
	Mitko Tsenov	Bulgaria	24:07
	Nemanja Cerovac	Serbia	24:08
4	Ivan Strebkov	Ukraine	24:10
5	Luke Caldwell	Great Britain	24:13
6	Ørjan Grønnevig	Norway	24:15
7	Callum Hawkins	Great Britain	24:18
8	Michele Fontana	Italy	24:19
9	Paul Robinson	Ireland	24:22
10	Henrik Ingebrigtsen	Norway	24:23
11	Dmytro Siruk	Ukraine	24:23
12	Jonathan Hay	Great Britain	24:24

Teams

Rank	Team	Points
	Great Britain Caldwell Hawkins Hay Dewi Griffiths Richard Goodman Jack Goodwin	40
	Ukraine Strebkov Siruk Oleksandr Kuzmichov Igor Porozov	72
	France Romain Collenot-Spriet Francois Barrer Djilali Bedrani Youssef Mekdafou Michael Gras Sofiane Boulekouane	78

Under-23 women

Individual race

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time (m:s)
	Sifan Hassan	Netherlands	19:40
	Amela Terzić	Serbia	19:46
	Charlotte Purdue	Great Britain	19:49
4	Kate Avery	Great Britain	19:56
5	Lily Partridge	Great Britain	20:10
6	Liv Westphal	France	20:21
7	Rhona Auckland	Great Britain	20:25
8	Laura Weightman	Great Britain	20:28
9	Corinna Harrer	Germany	20:32
10	Gulshat Fazlitdinova	Russia	20:37
11	Ekaterina Sokolenko	Russia	20:45
12	Svetlana Riazantceva	Russia	20:47

Teams

Rank	Team	Points
	Great Britain Purdue Avery Partridge Auckland Weightman Jess Andrews	19
	Russia Fazlitdinova Sokolenko Riazantceva Luiza Litvinova Anna Fedorova	54
	Netherlands Hassan Maureen Koster Irene Van Lieshout Marlin Van Hal	70

Junior men

Individual race

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time (m:s)
	Ali Kaya	Turkey	17:49
	Isaac Kimeli	Belgium	17:51
	Mikhail Strelkov	Russia	18:05
4	Jonathan Davies	Great Britain	18:06
5	Lorenzo Dini	Italy	18:06
6	Alexandre Saddedine	France	18:12
7	Yemaneberhan Crippa	Italy	18:14
8	Steven Casteele	Belgium	18:16
9	Seán Tobin	Ireland	18:18
10	Viktor Bakharev	Russia	18:20
11	Aleksandr Novikov	Russia	18:22
12	Medhi Belhadj	France	18:22

Teams

Rank	Team	Points
	France Saddedine Belhadj Alexis Miellet Maxime Hueber Moosbrugger Theodore Klein Hamza Habjaoui	48
	Russia Strelkov Bakharev Novikov Vildan Gadelshin Alexey Vikulov	51
	Italy L. Dini Yemaneberhan Crippa Samuele Dini Nekagenet Crippa Osama Zoghlami Italo Quazzola	55

Junior women

Individual race

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time (m:s)
	Emelia Gorecka	Great Britain	13:06
	Sofia Ennaoui	Poland	13:16
	Maruša Mišmaš	Slovenia	13:27
4	Georgia Taylor-Brown	Great Britain	13:31
5	Alina Reh	Germany	13:34
6	Aleksandra Guliaeva	Russia	13:38
7	Maria Larsson	Sweden	13:39
8	Bobby Clay	Great Britain	13:40
9	Emine Hatun Tuna	Turkey	13:40
10	Maya Rehberg	Germany	13:41
11	Jessica Gibbon	Great Britain	13:41
12	Ebba Andersson	Sweden	13:44

Teams

Rank	Team	Points
	Great Britain Gorecka Taylor-Brown Clay Gibbon Lydia Turner Amy Griffiths	24
	Sweden Larsson Andersson Isabelle Brauer Tova Euren-Magnussen Agnes Sjostrom	75
	Germany Reh Rehberg Caerina Granz Vera Coutellier Lea Meyer Tatjana Schulte	95

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Great Britain (GBR)	5	1	3	9
2	France (FRA)	2	1	1	4
3	Spain (ESP)	2	0	1	3
4	Belgium (BEL)	1	2	0	3
5	Turkey (TUR)	1	1	0	2
6	Netherlands (NED)	1	0	1	2
7	Russia (RUS)	0	2	1	3
8	Serbia (SRB)	0	1	1	2
9	Bulgaria (BUL)	0	1	0	1
	Poland (POL)	0	1	0	1
	Sweden (SWE)	0	1	0	1
	Ukraine (UKR)	0	1	0	1
13	Germany (GER)	0	0	1	1
	Italy (ITA)	0	0	1	1
	Portugal (POR)	0	0	1	1
	Slovenia (SLO)	0	0	1	1
Totals (16 nations)		12	12	12	36

References

1. Results by date Archived 10 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine
2. President Wirz celebrates the cross country movement. European Athletics (7 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
3. Britton has Belgrade – and only Belgrade – on her mind. European Athletics (7 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
4. Mulkeen, Jon (8 December 2013). Third time lucky for Duarte at European Cross as Bezabeh regains title. IAAF. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
5. Duarte is the toast of France. European Athletics (8 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
6. Chahdi and Meucci return for the grand finale. European Athletics (7 December 2012). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
7. Bezabeh runs away to victory as Arikan recovers in style. European Athletics (8 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
8. Hannes shows what he is made of. European Athletics (8 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
9. Hassan's Dutch delight as Terzic brings joy to Serbia. European Athletics (8 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
10. Kaya's late speed takes him to gold in a thriller. European Athletics (8 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
11. Gorecka strolls away to win gold again. European Athletics (8 December 2013). Retrieved 16 December 2013.
12. Foley, Cliona (9 December 2013). Irish runners call for halt to African recruitment by European countries. The Irish Independent. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
13. Kelly, Feidhlim (10 December 2013). European Cross Conundrum Archived 17 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Jumping the Gun. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
14. MacKay, Duncan (8 December 2013). Spanish drugs cheat wins European Cross Country title by biggest margin for nine years. Inside The Games. Retrieved 17 December 2013.

External links

• Official website