2021 European Cross country championships Results

The European cross country championships always provides excitement, although the main focus was on the battle between undefeated Jimmy Gressier and Jakob Ingebrigtsen, all age groups were filled with amazing races and highlighted some stars we expect to see at the next Olympics in Paris.

U20 Women British athlete Megan Keith continued her great form to win over Norweigan Ostgard and germany’s Heckel.

U20 Men – Most people were expecting a battle between 16 year old Nick griggs and Danish runner Joel Lilleso, but it was in fact another danish runner Christensen who took a convincing victory over Norway’s Rabi and Lilleso in 3rd

U23 Women
The most predictable race of the day as Battocletti of Italy took the victory, after an amazing year, as she finished 7th at the Olympics in Tokyo. Lukan was 2nd and Machado of Portugal finished 3rd.

U23 Men

With Jakob in the senior race, all eyes were on Charles Hicks who finished 4th at the NCAA champions 3 weeks ago. Charles ran strong but ended up having to be the fastest in the kick as he motored away from Darragh Mc on Ireland and Querinjean of the Luxembourg.

Women's

Some big names such as Klosterhalfen and Can struggled, but Norwegian Grovdal took the victory which secured a double victory for Norway in the Senior Men and Senior Womens races. Bahta of Sweden finished 2nd, followed by Reh of Germany.

Senior Men – The main focus as Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Jimmy Gressier went into this race both being undefeated over the last 3 years in these championships. Jakob four consecutive victories at the u20 level and Jimmy Grassier 3 consecutive at the u23 level. It was Jakob and Jimmy or were part of a 4 man breakaway, but as Crippa stopped suddenly four became 3 and 3 quickly became 2 as Jimmy Gressier couldn’t keep with the pace.

Despite some questionable race tactics from Jakob, with an unusual lean downhill and sometimes getting gapped, the Olympic champion was too strong and pulled away over the last 1K to take a victory by 14 seconds ahead of the Turkish runner Kaya, with Gressier finishing 3rd as 4 french runners come inside the top 8 to easily win the team title.

That’s now 5 victories in a row for Jakob Ingebrigtsen, as at already such a young as he is cementing himself as the greatest European distance runner in history to add to his Olympic title, countless European victories on the track and 2 European records in the 3K and 5K.

To top off the British dominance at this championship, Alex Bell, Hannah Nuttall, Luke duffy and Ben west won the short relay with what ended up being a commanding victory with Alex Bell earning our run of the day with the gap she closed and then opened.

Congrats to Total running Productions @Total Running Productions for beating me to the video ;)
Jakob Ingebrigtsen DOMINATES The 2021 European XC ChampionshipsDista
Their better version is here - https://youtu.be/6BkqIf1ARic

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