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Samokov golden girl Steel ready for the home challenge

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Gemma Steel is one of four gold medalists from the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Samokov last month who will be looking to start the New Year in style on Saturday.

Steel runs for the Great Britain team in the annual international match with Team Europe and the USA at the Great Edinburgh XCountry.

She has been putting the finishing touches to her training ahead of her race on Saturday according to Twitter.

This follows her finishing 2014 in style by winning the San Silvestre Vallecana International on New Year's Eve and afterwards celebrating in style.


Holyrood Park will stage four races - the senior men's 8km, senior women's 6km, junior men's 6km and junior women's 4km.

And while Steel runs for Britain, Team Europe includes the Samokov senior men's winner Polat Kemboi Arikan, of Türkiye, Ilgizar Safiulin, of Russia, the under-23 gold medallist, and Italy's, Yemaneberhan Crippa, the junior women's winner.

The women’s race will be of the highest quality and once more will pit Steel with France’s Sophie Duarte who beat her to gold at the 2013 SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Belgrade.

Last month, Steel gained revenge when she won in Samokov in 28:27 with Duarte in fifth in 28:58.

But Team Europe's women side is full of strength including Ireland’s double European cross country champion Fionnuala Britton and Meraf Bahta, the Swedish star who won the 5000m at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich in August.

The British team will be captained by Jonathan Taylor, who finished seventh over the 4km distance in Edinburgh last year. He will run in the 8km race.




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