Beagles senior men cross country team made their debut at international level in Bilbao on 7^th February, finishing 8^th out of 18 champion clubs from across Europe. It was a solid performance against many of the best cross country runners in Europe. Indeed, an argument could be made for the overall depth in this race being superior to that seen in the main European Cross Country Champs which were held in Dublin two weeks before Christmas.

Our preparations were hampered by a lack of races in Britain in the weeks leading up to the big race, due to adverse weather conditions. The cancelled Met League race at Stevenage was particularly unfortunate, as this was the race that we had planned to use as a run-off for places in the team. Six runners were finally selected, meeting up at Stansted Airport on Saturday morning for the two hour flight to the biggest city in the Basque region. The team was joined at Stansted by Rory Chesser’s coach, Pat Hogan, who gave us great support during the trip - a top guy. We were without Moumin Geele, whose travel document failed to arrive in time for us to secure a visa for the trip. Bilbao was overcast but the Sunday temperature of 16c made a pleasant change from the colder temperatures we’d been used to in Britain. The course was located on a park in central Bilbao on the site of an old foundry. One short lap and five longer laps on a mudbath with lots of twists and turns.

A crowd of approximately 7000 crowded on to the Parque Etxebarria to see the all-conquering Beagles in action....or maybe the Spanish champions Bikila who featured European champion Alemayehu Bezabeh in their ranks. This was no race for the faint-hearted, as the cloying mud encouraged even the best to seek any firmer ground. Bezabeh soon stamped his mark on the race, sharing the lead throughout with Dublin 5^th placer, Ayad Lamdassem. The Spanish, Portugese and Italian clubs have a different funding structure, which enables them to support their athletes to an extent not seen elsewhere. The Italian champions, GA Fiamme Gialle, had flown Andrea Lalli from Kenya specifically for the race – the 2008 European Under 23 champion finished 11th. Bezabeh broke clear near the end to win from Lamdassem. Gabriele de Nard finished 3^rd, benefiting from a huge error by the course marshals who directed Pascal Sarwat to run a further lap when he only had 80 metres to run. Realising the mistake, Sarwat attempted to hurdle the orange plastic fence that marked the course but sunk in the mud as he took off and ended up flat on his face.

Result:

1.Bezabeh Bikila/Spain 32.19

2.Lamdassem Bikila/Spain 32.20

3.De Nard Fiamme/Italy 32.28

4.Sarwat Kromeriz/Czech 32.28

5.Caimmi Fiamme/Italy 32.45

6.Kenneally Clonliffe/Ire 32.49

7.Pimentel Grupo/Port 33.04

8.Petrovic Mladost/Serb 33.05

9.Ceylan Kocaeli/Turk 33.07

10.Mbengami Grupo/Port 33.09

So what of our lads in this hot race?

17. LEE MERRIEN 33.27. His last cross country race before focussing on his preparations for London Marathon. Lee is a GB xc international which underlines the quality of the race – finished 23 seconds behind 7^th placer, so a very sound performance.

36. RORY CHESSER 34.29. Always placed in the 30’s and rallied well on the last lap after looking as if he was going to drift backwards. Very much a runner to mark down for the future and may well feature prominently in the National at Leeds. Impressive.

39. KAIRN STONE 34.40. Longest serving Beagle in the team and did himself proud. Has an inbuilt ability to judge his fitness and the pace of the race. Came through strongly in middle stages of the race.

52. KEVIN SKINNER35.07. Made good progress in mid part of race and will now intensify training in preparation for London Marathon.

58. DAVE MITCHINSON 35.23. Never got going as well as he would have liked – again the quality of the race is underlined by his final placing.

70. SCOTT STERLING 36.32. Mud didn’t suit Scott but appearance was well deserved after great progress since turning out for the B team in the Southern 6 stage. One to watch in the next few weeks.

Team result:

1.Bikila/Spain 36; 2. GA Fiamme Gialle/Italy 42; 3. Grupo/Portugal 56; 4. Kocaeli/Turkey 79; 5. Maratona/Portugal 83; 6. Kromeriz/Cze 103; 7. Cevennes/Fra 106; 8. BEAGLES 144.

Some measure of the strength of the race is given by realising that with Mo Farah and Moumin Geele in the team, we would not have finished higher than 4^th. We want to go back again – it was a tremendous experience. Onwards and upwards!