RECORD NUMBER OF GOLD MEDALS FOR GB & NI AT THE 2023 EUROPEAN CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS

This is Stuart Weir’s second story on the 2023 SPAR European Athletics Championships. The European Athletics Champs were a huge success for the Team GB, and that was great news after a week of tough financial news for UK Athletics.

Stuart Weir tells RunBlogRun about all of the fine performances by Team GB. 

RECORD NUMBER OF GOLD MEDALS FOR GB & NI AT THE 2023 EUROPEAN CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS

Great Britain and Northern Ireland topped the medal table at the 2023 European Cross Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium, after winning 11 medals in total and a record number of gold medals [7]. 

In challenging muddy conditions at Laeken Park, there were individual medals for Will Barnicoat [U23 Men], Megan Keith [U23 women], and Innes Fitzgerald [U20 women], while there were team titles for four out of the seven teams. 

The U20 men’s team won team silver, while the relay won team bronze, and there were individual bronze medals for Abbie Donnelly [Senior women] and Matt Stonier [U23 men] on a frantic day for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland squad. 

One of the finest displays of the Championships came from Megan Keith, who produced one of the largest winning margins in European cross-country history as she secured gold in the U23 women’s race. The Scottish athlete beat her nearest opponent by one minute and 23 seconds in one of the most dominant performances ever seen on the continental stage. 

By the end of the second lap, she was already ahead by 21 seconds, and the gap just kept on growing with the gold looking more of a certainty as the race unfolded. In the end, she had time to give high fives to the crowd before crossing the line to win her first U23 cross country gold medal – matching her 5000m victory in the summer – following silver last year and U20 gold in 2021. 

She also contributed to the U23 women’s team gold after some excellent performances from the squad. Alex Millard (Bill Foster, Invicta East Kent) – bronze medallist in 2022 – was 11^th, while Eloise Walker (Trevor Painter, Edinburgh) was the third and final counter in 15^th, which saw the GB & NI team as clear winners ahead of Germany and Spain. 

Afterwards, a…