Britain look for top spot again
01 Dicembre 2016Great Britain will send a 36-strong team in Chia, where they will be looking to top the medal table for an eighth year in a row
Gemma Steel, the 2014 champion, and Jonny Davies, the defending under-23 champion, are part of an experienced squad chasing glory in Sardinia, at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships. Steel has been making the podium at the Euro Cross since Velenje in 2011 when she took senior bronze and team gold - she has seven medals in total - and she is joined by, among others, Steph Twell, who won team gold in 2014 and this summer was third in the 5000m at the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam.
Andrew Butchart, who was sixth in the 5000m at the Olympics in Rio, spearheads the senior men’s team after winning last weekend’s trials, a race where he beat Callum Hawkins, who is also in the team along with Andy Vernon, who won has three Euro Cross medals, including under-23 silver from Brussels in 2008 and senior bronze from Belgrade in 2013. Davies won the under-23 title in Hyères in 23:32 and team leader Spencer Duval told British Athletics: "We have seen what several of those selected for the team are capable of, and we are confident that the team has the potential to win medals across the age groups."
Germany is sending 25 athletes to Chia with Konstanze Klosterhalfen, 19, bidding to defend her junior title where, once again, she will face Britain’s Harriet Knowles-Jones, who was second 12 months ago, and her German teammate Alina Reh, who was third. Klosterhalfen won by four seconds in Hyères and increased her reputation even more in the summer when she won bronze in the 3000m at the IAAF World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz in a national age group record time of 8:46.74. Amanal Petros won under-23 men’s bronze for Germany in 2015 and he returns looking for more success, while their women’s under-23 team is led by Maya Rehberg and Anna Gehring. Florian Orth, who was seventh in the 5000m in Amsterdam, will fly the flag for Germany in the men’s senior race while in the women’s, Julia Bleasdale, who won team gold along with Steel for Britain in 2011 and holds dual nationality, will make her debut for Germany after switching international allegiances.
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