Success for St Mary’s Athletes at European Cross Country Championships

Athletes and alumni from the Endurance Performance and Coaching Centre (EPACC) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham saw a successful weekend at the European Cross County Championships.

Hosted in Tilburg, Netherlands, the championships brought together the leading athletics talent from across Europe to compete in a range of distances and age classifications.

The best results from the day came in the Women’s u23 race, in which EPACC athlete Anna Møller took the Gold medal for Denmark, completing the 6km course in 20:34, two seconds ahead of second place. St Mary’s Graduate Amy Griffiths (7^th) and EPACC Athlete Emily Moyes (45^th) supported Team GB to a 3^rd place finish.

Elsewhere in the Men’s U23 race, Emile Cairess, 8^th place, and Paulos Surafel, 27^th place, helped Team GB to a 2^nd place finish, whilst Nick Goolab finished in 47^th place in the men’s Senior Race as Team GB finished in 2^nd place.

Speaking of their success Head of Sport at St Mary’s Andrew Reid-Smith said, “Anna is one of our sports scholars and has moved to St Mary’s to study and be part of the endurance programme. She produced an excellent run to win gold.  It was also good to see St Mary’s runners contributing to the British team medals.  Despite an early fall, Emile had a strong run to finish well up the field and continue his strong performances.”

St Mary’s EPACC Performance Coach and GB Junior Men’s Team Coach Mick Woods commented: “It’s always great being involved in a successful European Cross Country Championship and this year proved no exception. Team GB’s strong performance was made even better by the mature gold medal winning performance of Anna. Going into any race can be challenging being the favourite is even more difficult, but she timed her finishing effort to perfection.  It was good to see strong performances from all St Mary’s EPACC athletes on what was a technically demanding and difficult course”