Mayr and Mamo live up to billing at WMRC
The men's podium
In last week’s preview of the 2012 World Mountain Running Champs, we commented that Andrea Mayr had the class to retain her world (uphill only) title and Perto Mamo had the pedigree to make it onto the podium…
After yesterday’s Championships had taken their course, the Austrian and Eritrean athlete were victorious, in a comprehensive manner which underlined their pre-race ‘favourite’ status.
In the men’s race Mamo, along with team mate Azeria Teklay and Russia’s Andrey Safronov, quickly established an early lead as the race emerged from the town of Ponte di Legno and started on the mountain ascent. From here on Mamo took command and extended his lead to finish, to win in 1:01:34 a full 73 seconds ahead of Teklay, with Safronov claiming an excellent bronze in 1:03:06. The Eritreans also took team gold.
Petro Mamo wins the 2012 WMRC
From a GB perspective Steve Vernon led the line for the senior men, starting off strongly with the likes of Italy’s Marco de Gasperi (who ended in 6th) the Stockport man ended in 17th place (1:06:40), just one place ahead of a storming Robbie Simpson in 18th (1:06:47) who must be very pleased with a top 20 spot at his first senior world championships.
The rest of the GB team performed strongly with Joe Symonds 36th (1:08:18), Chris Smith 50th (1:09:39), Nick Swinburn 56th (1:10:09) and James McMullan 57th (1:10:17), enabling a 6th place finish for the GB boys from the 21 teams competing.
The GB senior men
Unlike the men’s race Mayr found herself having to chase a furious early pace set by the US and Romanian women. However, the multiple World champion settled into a good climbing pace and gradually pulled away as the climb steepened.
Andrea Mayr takes the 2012 world crown
The Austrian winner of the 2010 world title and WMRA Grand Prix prevailed in 46:35, almost 30 seconds up on Italy’s Valentina Belotti who took the silver, with the US’ Morgan Aritola taking the bronze and leading the USA team to a glorious victory in the team race. GB women missed out on a medal by 8 points from the Swiss.
Kate Goodhead led them home with an excellent 12th (49:35), 3 mins back on Mayr. With trials winner Vic Wilkinson in 24th (51:12), Rebecca Robinson 30th (52:07) and Emma Clayton 32nd (52:14) it was yet another strong showing by a GB womens team at major mountain running championship.
Kate Goodhead
Vic Wilkinson leads Emma Clayton
Showing that the future is also bright Britain’s junior women won a superb team silver, after European Junior Champ Annabel Mason (4th) and Mel Hyder (6th) showed that they are prospective world champions in the making. Their team (2 to score) score of 10 was just one point short of the Turkish team. Caroline Lambert was a very creditable 21st on the day, with Turkey’s Sevilay Eytemis a clear winner of the individual title.
GB junior women receive their silver medals
In the junior men’s race Ugandan Michael Cheprop won the gold, in turn leading his nation to team honours. The GB boys were led home by Peter Harrison in an excellent 16th, Garry Rankin in 45th, Josh Griffiths in 50th and Brad Travis in 59th.
Full individual and team results from across the four races can be found here, with some superb images via Steve Vernon’s brother Dan and his Dan Vernon Photography page.
