from AAI Last year Turkey’s Sultan Haydar made an audacious bid from the gun to win at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships but it all dramatically fell apart halfway into the race.
This year everything fell into place, rather than apart, and she added to her country’s growing reputation at the championships by winning in 21:14 over the 6039m course.
Haydar, who took the European Athletics Under 23 1500m title in Kaunas, Lithuania, this summer, had a 10 seconds advantage after the first lap of 1650m and extended it by another three seconds over the next kilometres.
However, it looked as though there was going to be a repetition of events 12 months ago when Russia’s Iriina Sergeyeva, who had gradually closed gap over the preceding 1500m, finally got onto her shoulder at 4500m.
In the end, though, the Turkish girl’s track speed proved vital in the battle for the line as Sergeyeva, who is looking to compete in the 10000m at next year’s European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, couldn’t find another gear over the final 50m and was unable to respond to Haydar’s gritty sprint finish.
"I don’t think of myself as a Cross Country runner, I’m much more comfortable on the track, and when I saw how muddy the course was, I was worried. I thought maybe a top 10 or 15 place would be a good result for me. But when I was warming up, I felt good. During the first two laps, when I was about fifth or sixth I was still feeling good and when I saw the British girl (Twell), who was in front of me, struggling badly, I thought that was my chance and I could get a medal and that’s when I decided to close the gap on Haydar," reflected Segeyeva.
Sergeyeva finished just one second behind Haydar and 11 seconds further back was Britain’s Jessica Sparke, who finally got an individual medal for the family by coming home in the bronze medal position.
Her twin sister Katherine finished seventh at the 2008 SPAR European Cross Country Championships but did not make the team this time while both women ran for Britain in the 2007 Under 23 race and were part of the squad that won the team gold medals on that occasion but finished outside the top ten.
Sparke ran shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammate Stephanie Twell for the first half of the race as the pair ran what appeared to be a well-judged race despite watching Haydar disappear into the distance. The rest of the field, including Sergeyeva, was also 50 metres behind the British pair at the halfway point in the race.
However, Twell – 2008 European Athletics Rising Star of the Year who completed an unprecedented hat-trick of victories in the junior ranks 12 months ago – uncharacteristically started to struggle in the second half of the race and eventually finished 11th.
Despite Twell’s off-day, it was still a race to remember for Great Britain as they maintained their dominance of the team competition in this category.
They have now been victorious on all four occasions that this age group has been contested since it was introduced in 2006.
Last year, Britain’s four scorers were among the first 11 women home and in Dublin they went one better and put their scoring quartet in the top ten, tallying 22 points with Charlotte Browning finishing fourth, Hollie Rowland fifth and Stevie Stockton 10th.
Russia, for the third year running, took the silver medals, pushing Britain very hard by getting their four scoring runners in the top nine runners to end with 25 points. France got third place with 85 points.