While many of us came face-to-face with Storm Darragh on our outdoor runs at the weekend, Europe’s greatest distance runners of the moment came face-to-face with each other at the 2024 European Cross Country Championships – the continent’s most important cross-country fixture. Great Britain scored the most medals of all nations by a sizeable margin, while Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s decisive victory in the men’s senior race – his third win to date – was another standout result.
In the mens senior competitionth edition of the event, this year’s European Cross Country Championships took place on Sunday (8 December) in Antalya, Turkey, and involved races both for women and men in the U20, U23 and senior categories. As of 2017, the annual Championships have also encompassed a four-person mixed senior relay.
This year, competitors covered several laps of Antalya’s Dokuma Park: three for athletes in both U20 races, four for those in the U23 races and five for the senior women and men. Relay competitors, meanwhile, completed one fast and ferocious lap each, equating to four laps in total for every team.
Although reasonably flat in elevation, the Antalya course featured fatiguing sections of sand, small hurdles and mud – classic cross-country obstacles that demanded each runner’s full attention at all times. As such, this was anything but a walk in Dokuma Park.
In the men’s senior competition, Norwegian frontrunner Ingebrigtsen cruised ahead with apparent ease to claim victory over the five-lap, 7,832m-long course in a time of 22:16, eight seconds clear of second-place Yemaneberhan Crippa of Italy.
‘Cross-country is something that I really enjoy,’ said Ingebrigtsen – a seasoned track athlete with two Olympic and two World Championships gold medals to his name – after Sunday’s race. ‘It’s very different from my other competitions. There’s something special and exciting about around 100 people being at the start line, going for the first turn.
‘There’s a lot of fighting and pushing and shoving and there are a lot of things that could happen,’ he continued. ‘The course was so challenging and tactical, as well as technical. It’s all about using the energy wisely and trying to manoeuvre.’
Having been forced to miss the 2023 senior men’s race due to injury, Ingebrigtsen, 24, was clearly back to prove his dominance at this year’s event. After all, this latest victory supplements the senior golds that he scored at the 2021 and 2022 European Cross Country Championships, as well as the five golds and standalone silver that he achieved at the event as a junior athlete from 2016 to 2019. It seems that he is just as adept on irregular, disruptive cross-country terrain as he is on the precise oval of the track.
Aside from Ingebrigtsen’s individual heroics, Great Britain, as a nation, came up trumps at the 2024 European Cross Country Championships. Topping the final standings with 12 medals, including six golds, three silvers and three bronzes, Great Britain finished well ahead of second-place Italy, which scooped 5 medals, and third-place Norway, which claimed 3.
This stellar result was spearheaded by some superb performances in the junior races. In the U20 women’s race, Great Britain’s Innes Fitzgerald and Jess Bailey finished first and second respectively, giving the team a gold medal overall. George Couttie also bagged an individual silver for Great Britain in the U20 men’s race.
As for the U23 competitions, both the women and men came away with team golds for Great Britain, with Phoebe Anderson and Will Barnicoat winning individual golds and David Stone an individual bronze, too.
Meanwhile, in the senior races, Great Britain’s women secured team silver, while the men’s team and relay team each gained a bronze.
Tempted to try cross-country running for yourself? The strength of Great Britain’s squad at the 2024 European Cross Country Championships is surely enough to inspire you to Innes Fitzgerald and Jess Bailey won individual gold and silver medals respectively and Cross-country running: Everything you need to know this season – mud, mayhem, camaraderie and all.
