France's Basile Astier and Germany’s Julia Ehrle celebrated comfortable victories in action-packed U20 up-and-downhill mountain races on the last day of the European Athletics Off-Road Running Championships in Ljubljana-Kamnik on Sunday (7).
Only three seconds after the starting gun was fired, the first dramatic scenes occurred when a group of runners stumbled and fell at the first metres of the men’s U20 up and downhill mountain race.
"There is always pushing and shoving at the junior races," said Great Britain's Ewan Busfield. He was happy to get through and finished third after a very fast race out of the Kamnik streets up in the woods to the castle.
Again, the French runners dominated the field with Basile Astier securing a comfortable victory finishing the 6km race in 23:58, 39 seconds ahead of Yannick Memheld (24:37) and Busfield (24:55). "It was a good race, and I felt very strong," Astier said, wrapped up in the French tricolore with a radiant smile.
Memheld, who had already won gold in the U20 uphill race, was equally happy. "This is crazy. Four medals at my first European Championships," he summed up.
Beside his two individual medals, Memheld won another two gold medals in both team races as France extends their ascendancy on the medal table.
In the women’s U20 race, Julia Ehrle from Germany struck back after her bronze medal as defending champion in the uphill race.
Ehrle, who also won 5000m bronze at the European Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere last August, finished in 28:21 minutes, 48 seconds ahead of Agota Szabo from Hungary (29:09) and Sofia Rubio (29:16). "I am really really happy with winning the gold medal today after bronze in the uphill."
The crucial section for Ehrle was the downhill. "I was in front already when we reached the peak of the course, but on the downhill I could widen the gap even more. I was flying down," she added.
Szabo and Rubio, on the other hand, were not happy with the downhill. "I like the uphill way better. The downhill was the hardest part of the race," said the individual silver medallist Szabo.
And Rubio agreed on that: "Also because I am not really good at the downhills."
Led by Manon Rousseaux in fifth, France won the U20 team title ahead of Spain and Switzerland who pipped hosts Slovenia for the bronze medal by one point.