Portugal's Augusto and Félix start to think about Velenje

Portugal's Jessica Augusto is set to compete in Velenje in December at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships.

The Portuguese pair of Jessica Augusto and Ana Dulce Félix, the gold and bronze medallists from last year's SPAR European Cross Country Championships, have got this year's event in Velenje in their diaries but are being careful not to promise more medals after their recent outings at the ING New York City Marathon.

“The target for recent months was the New York Marathon rather than preparing specifically for  running cross country this winter but both of them want to help the Portuguese team at the European Cross Country Championships,” their manager Hugo Miguel Sosa told www.european-athletics.org on Thursday.

The 2011 SPAR European Cross Country Championships will be held in Velenje, Slovenia, on 11 December.

“The Portuguese women's team has won at the championships for the last three years and so they both want to do their best for their country, it's very important to them, but Jessica's own individual expectations are perhaps not as high as they were last year.

“She hasn't done the speed work that she did last year as she has been preparing for the marathon but, you never know, sometimes things can happen. Look at what happened with Ana (Dulce Félix) last year, she had a bad run in New York and stopped after 30km, almost in the same place as Jessica did this year, but then got third in Albufeira (at the 2010 SPAR European Cross Country Championships). I think she even surprised herself there.

“The other thing is that Velenje is expected to be a really tough race, I don't think it will be as fast a course as last year, so maybe putting in the miles and building up their stamina will help. Jessica remembers Velenje well as she ran there as a junior in 1999,” added Sousa.

Augusto pulled up just after 30km of the New York Marathon on 5 November and, instead, it was her friend Félix who got the plaudits, coming home fourth in a personal best of 2:25:40.

Both women will definitely run one of the two Portuguese federation's qualifying races in the coming weeks but Sousa could not confirm where they would be on the start line as both Augusto and Felix were still in the final stages of recovering from their outing in the Big Apple just under two weeks ago.