Austria, Italy and Gt Britain dominate the medal table.
The following report appears on the EAA web page. Visit this page via the link on the WMRA web page for all the results and photographs
Double Gold for Austria in Heliligenblut
It was an excellent day for host nation Austria at the 4th European Mountain Running Championships in Heiligenblut on Sunday 10 July. They took the individual titles in both men’s and women’s races through Florian Heinzle and Andrea Mayr. Italy were team champions once again the men’s event while Great Britain and Northern Ireland took a surprise victory in the women’s race.
A record 92 men and 71 women and from 28 nations took part in the Championships on the lower slopes of the Grossglockner, the highest mountain in Austria.
In the women’s race Austria’s last year’s Silver medalist Andrea Mayr took the title in driving rain over a tough 10km course with featured a total climb of 1335m. She dominated the race from the start and by the 6km point was already a minute ahead of her nearest challenger, the pre race favourite and defending champion Anna Pichtrova from the Czech Republic.
She took the title in a time of 1:07:42, 1 minute and 56 seconds ahead of Pichtrova, with Swiss athlete Angeline Joly-Flückieger in third, another 1 minute 6 seconds back.
“I had a great respect for the course and thought that Anna Pichtrova was really unbeatable, but naturally I always hoped that I would be in the fight for the title. But now I am ecstatic! My motto today was ‘have fun’ and I had that today. It was simply an amazing race,” said Mayr after her victory.
The winner of the team title was also a surprise with Great Britain and Northern Ireland taking the title ahead of favorites Italy. It could not have been closer though, both teams scored 34 points but Great Britain took the Gold medals as their third scorer, Lyn Wilson, finished one place and four seconds ahead of Italy’s third scorer Flavia Gaviglio.
Great Britain’s triumph came despite the fact that former World Trophy winner Angela Mudge had to withdraw injured the week before the Championships, 2003 World Trophy Bronze medalist Tracey Brindley was forced out by a leg injury only a quarter of the way into the race and usually uphill only courses do not favour British athletes.
In addition to Wilson’s 19th place, Mary Wilkinson finished seventh in her first ever international race and Victoria Wilkinson was eighth. Italy were lead home by Vittoria Salvini in fifth and Antonella Confortola in ninth. The Czech Republic took Bronze with 41 points.
The home fans had more to cheer about during the men’s race when Florian Heinzle took the title over the 13km course with a climb of 1520m. He crossed the line on the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe in 1:11:36 ahead of German Helmut Schiessl (1:12:16) who took Silver after a tough battle with defending champion Marco de Gasperi from Italy who was third in 1:12:35. In cold and wet conditions Heinzle was soon at the front of the field and by the half way point he had already established a good lead.
At the end of the race an exhausted Heinzle said: “The race set off at a fast pace, I even thought it might be a bit too fast. The final climb to the finish was really hard, I had cramp in the last 3km, but I ran a great time considering the conditions. Clearly my preparation was perfect and today I simply could not have run any faster.”
Italy, who have dominated the team competition in this event in recent years, took the title again with 20 points with de Gasperi in third, Marco Gaiardo in seventh and Gabriele Abate in tenth.
Great Britain took Silver with 31 points with Martin Cox eighth, Steve Vernon ninth and Andy Jones 14th. France were third with 36 points led by Raymond Fontaine in fourth place with Julien Rancon in 13th and Jean-Christophe Dupont in 19th.