“I was tired going into the last lap, and I felt that in the last few metres, but I knew that going down the hill that I am good at that,” said Grovdal.
Grovdal was engaged in a fascinating head-to-head duel with Germany’s European 5000m champion Konstanze Klosterhalfen and only pulled away from Klosterhalfen on the final downhill stretch just 200 metres from the finish before crossing the line in 26:25 after 7.7km of running. Little more than half an hour before Ingebrigtsen secured his second senior European cross-country title, and his sixth consecutive individual continental gold medal overall after an unprecedented four U20 wins, Grovdal triumphed again 12 months after winning in Dublin.
“But, then again, you don't know about the course, and don't know what shape your competitors are in so I think it was a great race for me, I had a lot of fun.”įrance managed to place their three scorers in the top 11 to take the team title with 24 points, beating hosts Italy by a single point. “It was a tough race overall but in the last couple of weeks I have been doing some really good training so I knew I was in great shape coming here,” said Ingebrigtsen, the Olympic 1500m champion. The pair had valiantly tried to stay with Ingebrigtsen from the six-kilometre point, as local hope and European 10,000m champion Yemaneberhan Crippa started to lose contact with the leaders before eventually finishing fourth, but they had no answer to his decisive surge midway around the last of six long 1.4km laps. Ingebrigtsen controlled the senior men’s race over 9.7km from the front before moving through the gears with about 700 metres to go and leaving his last remaining rivals trailing in his wake, steadily increasing his lead to almost 60 metres before crossing the line in 29:33.īehind Ingebrigtsen, Great Britain’s Emile Cairess won the battle with Belgium’s former U23 winner Isaac Kimeli, the pair taking silver and bronze respectively in 29:42 and 29:45. Jakob Ingebrigtsen and his Norwegian compatriot Karoline Bjerkli Grovdal retained their European Cross Country Championships titles but did so in contrasting fashion in La Mandria Park in Piemonte, just outside the Italian city of Turin, on Sunday (11).
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