It was a busy weekend of two European Athletics Cross Country Permit events, in Kerkrade in the Netherlands, and Rovereto in Italy, which produced some fine results.
In the first of those, European athletes triumphed in both the men’s and women’s races.
At the Abdijcross, Sweden’s David Nilsson, who has run for his country in the marathon at both the World and European Championships, had a comfortable win as he mixed speed with endurance.
He triumphed in 33:46 ahead of Belgium’s Dame Tasame (34:06), Burundi’s Onesphore Nkunzimana (34:32) and Khalid Choukoud (34:33) of the Netherlands.
Nilsson was just too quick for the rest in the final part of the race as he stretched ahead to secure a good win.
Run in the woods near the Rolduc medieval abbey, Choukoud was happy with his performance in fourth as he looked to the future and said: “My goal is the Rotterdam marathon on April 9.”
The women’s race over 7.4km became a battle of two Belgians – and age meant nothing, Imana Truyers is 23 and veteran Veerle Dejaeghere is 43 but in end they were separated by only 12 seconds, with Truyers winning in 27:42 in a race where the Netherlands’ Marijke de Visser was third.
In Rovereto, on a course cleared of the snow, there was home one-two in the senior women’s race at the Cross Internazionale della Vallagarina.
Never mind the cold, wintery conditions, the 40th staging of this event saw a close race over 6km as Sara Dossena (22:25) just edged ahead of Valeria Roofing (22:27) with defending champion Alemitu Hawi, of Ethiopia, in third (22:45) and veteran Italian marathon runner Ivana Iozzia, 43, in fourth (23:08).
It was a notable success for Dossena, 32, who mixes her career between being a distance runner and a triathlete.
Last month she was part of the Italian women’s team which finished 10th at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Chia – she was 45th in the race – in a year where was fourth in the European Challenge middle distance triathlon in Walchsee.
As Dossena won the women’s race, the men’s 10km saw Kenya’s Robert Ndiwa (27:22) triumph in the event for the second time, finishing ahead of Burundi’s Olivier Irabaruta (27:27) and Italy’s Marco Salami (27:32).