The weather forecast was promising sunny hot day with lots of humidity and light west wind above 2000m – not too bad conditions for the top runners who had plans to attack women’s and men’s course records from 2006.

The three Eritreans and Ahmet Arslan from Turkey started at a high pace even though nobody knew the how difficult 10km course was with almost 2000m elevation, and after the middle part of the course the leading runners started to pay the price of their rate of running in what was very hot weather. In the end it was only Eritrean Azeryra Teklay who was able to keep up the high tempo and he finished well clear of Arslan, with local Nejc Kuhar, a specialist on such steep courses, taking bronze.

In the women’s race was very similar. Mateja Kosovelj from Slovenia ran the first part of the course at her normal pace for 45 minutes but in the upper part she was overtaken by Briton Emma Clayton and eventual winner Iva Milesova from the Czech Republic. Clayton was in the lead until just a hundred metres before the finish, but she lost concentration and tripped, and Iva used this moment to take the victory.

Both course records – Ana Pichrtova and Jonathan Wyatt – remained unchallenged.

The next station of the WMRA Grand Prix will be next Sunday in Mayrhofen (AUT). 

Tomo Sarf (LOC) for the IAAF

RESULTS:
1. MILESOVA Iva 77 CZE 1:39:37
2. CLAYTON Emma 88 GBR 1:39:44
3. KOSOVELJ Mateja 88 SLO 1:41:14
4. DRAGOMIR Denisa 92 ROU 1:42:42
5. SJURSEN Therese 76 NOR 1:46:57

MEN:
1. TEKLAY Azerya 78 ERI 1:17:27
2. ARSLAN Ahmet 86 TUR 1:21:54
3. KUHAR Nejc 85 SLO 1:22:03
4. KIDANE Abraham 74 ERI 1:22:56
5. MIKLOŠA Matjaž 75 SLO 1:28:00
6. EDWARDS Orlando 75 GBR 1:28:46