WMRA World Trophy Winner - Anna Pichrtova (CZE) (© Winfried Stinn)
Marco De Gasperi (ITA) won his fifth World title in the mountains of the Canton of Valais today, holding off the strong challenge of an African duo from Eritrea at the WMRA World Mountain Running Trophy.
De Gasperi who excels in the up/down version of the World Trophy had a comfortable margin of victory on the three lap course of 12km and 933m of ascent/descent, beating Tesfay Yohhanes by 30 seconds in a time of 51.49.
Italy beat Eritrea in the team race, both finishing with 30 points but Italy's last counter in 12th position was better than Eritrea's ‘last man’ (15th position).
Anna Pichrtova (CZE), also a downhill specialist, lifted the women’s World title at last after several high positions in previous trophy races. Last year’s champion, Andrea Mayr (AUT) gave her a hard fight. It was not until the descent on the second and final lap that the Czech pulled away to win by 41 seconds in a time of 39.11 for the 8km 622m ascent/descent course. Laura Haefeli (USA) led the American team to their second successive World Title with a score of 23 point, just one more than Czech Republic with 24.
Australia won their first World medals after 20 years of attempts as their junior women won individual gold with Lara Tamsett and team gold from USA, second, and Turkey, third.
Eritrea dominated the junior men’s race with positions 2, 3, 4, and 7th. However the individual gold went to Ugandan Geoffrey Kusuro who won a thrilling sprint finish by 5 seconds.
The event closed with the WMRA flag being handed over to Crans Montana (SUI) who stage next year’s event.
A record number of 390 athletes took part and with 35 nations sending entrants that equalled the previous highest number who raced in 2003.
Danny Hughes for the IAAF