The men’s U20 team rounded out the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships with team silver on the final day in Canfranc, Spain.

Jack Sanderson (Alastair Scholey, Settle Harriers) led the team with a sixth-place finish in Sunday’s Classic Mountain races where athletes fly up and down a fast course in the hills surrounding Canfranc Station, with the U20 races 7.8km with 379m of climbing and the Senior races 14.2km with 731m.

The pace was electric from the gun, with all the events featuring a road section of around one kilometre to spread the field out before the trailhead. Then, a mixture of fast dirt roads and single track within pine forest led everyone up to a stone bridge at the high point. Once for the U20s, twice for the seniors.

The first event of the day was the U20 women, with Isla Paterson (Laura Weightman, Gala Harriers) leading home the team in 15^th place after 42:06 of racing. Jessica Taylor (Enid Johnstone, Edinburgh AC) also finished in the top 20 in 42:56, with Amelie Lane (Angela Mudge, Wharfedale) and Hania Czebreszuk (James Joy, Aberdeen) in 31^st and 34^th respectively.

The gold was won by Julia Erhle of Germany, with Uganda, Italy and Spain the teams on the podium.

The Men’s U20 race had another rapid start, with the Ugandan trio of Titus Musau, Enos Chebet and Abraham Cherotich leading from the gun for a podium sweep. At the high point, Switzerland filled the next two spots of the top five, but Jack Sanderson flew across the bridge in seventh and he was a man on a mission.

The team positions count three runners and at this point we saw the strength of the Novuna GB&NI team in a podium battle that went down to single positions.

Sam Bentham was next in 13^th at the top, followed by Ewan Busfield (Jerry Hall, Derby) and Rowan Taylor (Kirk & Linda Smith, Lasswade AC). And then the descending started.

All of the Novuna GB&NI athletes flew down the mountain with the knowledge that every Swiss, French and Italian runner passed meant something in the battle for the team medals.

At the finish, Sanderson had moved up to sixth, Betham was 10^th, Busfield 13^th and Taylor 28^th, and it was enough to secure a magnificent team silver behind Uganda in gold and ahead of Switzerland in bronze.

After the race Sanderson, the youngest member of the team, said “knowing it could be close for a team medal gave me that extra strength to push beyond what I thought possible. Today was far beyond my own expectations”

The Senior races

Next, the Women’s Classic Mountain race saw Scout Adkin (Angela Mudge, Moorfoot), who raced the Uphill event on Thursday, line up alongside Nancy Scott, Sara Willhoit and Kate Maltby.

Any thoughts of a two-lap course seeing a slower start were quickly dismissed by Kenya and Uganda’s athletes pushing off the front as soon as the gun went, but when the climbing started it was Germany’s Nina Engelhard, fresh from winning the Uphill race earlier in the Championships, who pulled ahead.

At the top of the first climb, Adkin was in the top 10, but a tough second half saw her battling hard to finish 16^th in 1:16:30. Trial winner Scott (Phillip O’Dell, Aldershot) paced consistently to finish 23^rd in 1:18:09, with Maltby (Black Coombe) and Willhoit (Shrewsbury) swapping places throughout to cross the line in 32^nd and 37^th respectively.

The team gold was secured by Kenya, followed by the USA and Switzerland.

The Senior Men’s race was the final event of the Championships and saw crowds of supporters, including many who had just raced themselves, line the course and run between several cheering spots.

Martin Kiprotich of Uganda led almost the entire race, but Philemon Kiriago managed to overturn a 20-second deficit from the second summit to the finish line and won in 1:02:30.

The best GB&NI result was Jacob Adkin (Moorfoot) in 19^th, who also finished fifth in the Uphill race earlier in the week. Behind Adkin, Felix McGrath (Bristol & West) was 30^th, Andrew Douglas (Sophie Dunnett, Westerlands) 34^th and Lawrence McCourt (Laura Weightman, Morpeth) 52^nd.

Kenya took team gold, with Uganda silver and Italy bronze.