2023 European XC Championships — An OpenTrack View
A slightly different look at the events in Laeken Park, Brussels
Whilst the European Cross Country Championships this past weekend weren’t hosted on OpenTrack, watching the continent’s best and brightest traipse through the Brussels mud left us thinking — haven’t we seen this lot before?
With the titles wrapped up, and Great Britain & Northern Ireland topping the medal table by some margin, we thought it might be worth trawling the archives to take a look at the event from an OpenTrack point of view.
U20 Women
With a brave performance that saw her finish one place and seven seconds outside of the medals last year, Innes FitzGerald put together a consummate performance at the head of the U20 race this time around.
Kicking away to extend an already comfortable lead with 1500 metres to go, FitzGerald put 19 seconds into Dane Sofia Thøgersen for the biggest win of her career.
Impressive front-running is nothing new for the North Devon athlete, who won by almost a minute at the Cardiff Cross Challenge in November.
With a European cross title under her belt, the champion will likely next race with a roof over her head, in the women’s 3000 metres at the Cardiff Met Christmas Classic, a field that is also set to feature Laura Muir and Jenny Nesbitt.
U20 Men
After a very disappointing 2022 race in the U20s, Axel Vang Christensen crafted a stunning finish to this year’s edition, outkicking 2023 World Championships 10th-placer and double European Junior champion Niels Laros.
Though a place lower than last year’s individual silver, Nick Griggs secured a European team gold at the third time of asking, having finished second with his Irish team in each of the previous two editions.
Now boasting a rapid 1:49.57 personal best over 800 metres, Griggs featured on OpenTrack in 2022’s NI & Ulster Senior Championships, the quadruple Irish U20 record holder finishing second in a tight finish behind Irish senior international Harry Purcell.
U23 Women
Beaten by home favourite Nadia Battocletti a year prior, this year’s U23 women’s race was all about Megan Keith.
Leading gun to tape, and generating an astonishing winning margin of one minute and 23 seconds, Keith added U23 gold to her U20 title in Dublin, two years ago
The Inverness Harrier has impressed in every OpenTrack-hosted race she has run, with wins in three of the last four years at the 2020 Scottish Short Course Championships, as well as both the 2021 and 2023 Cardiff Cross Challenges.
The Great Britain & Northern Ireland team comfortably took team gold, 27 points nearly half the total of Germany in second place, with Alexandra Millard and Eloise Walker the other scorers.
U23 Men
From acres of space in the women’s race, to the closest of finishes in the men’s, as Will Barnicoat led Frenchman Valentin Bresc across the line, both finishing in 23:42.
Based up at the University of Birmingham, Barnicoat’s last OpenTrack appearance was at their 2022 Track & Field Festival, setting a personal best 8:06.76, good enough for 35th British U20 all-time at time of writing.
Continuing the British team’s stellar team record on the day were Matt Stonier and James Kingston, third and 21st respectively to assure team gold.
Senior Women
The final women’s race of the day was the only one without a British victory, as Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal took top prize for the third year running.
The Norwegian’s OpenTrack profile has to be seen to be believed, with 17 years’ worth of history at European and World Championships on display, courtesy of our friends over at Tilastopaja.
Best of the rest was Nadia Battocletti, comfortably second in her first senior appearance at these championships.
The Italian placed third in the 2023 Night of the 10,000m PBs earlier this year on OpenTrack, setting a personal best at the Silver-level Continental Tour event.
Senior Men
With reigning champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen absent through injury, it was Frenchman Yann Schrub who came out on top.
With a late push, the Frenchman took this year’s title ahead of Magnus Tuv Myhre whose silver was a vast improvement on his U23 10th place in 2022.
Schrub featured on OpenTrack in the 2021 at the European Athletics 10,000m Cup as part of the winning French team.
If you’ve made it this far, spare a thought for those at the opposite end of the field, battling Belgian mud for longer than any medallist.
In 82nd place, and the final finisher to be awarded a time (36:35), was Arnold Rogers of Gibraltar, finishing just behind the well-raced Maltese silver medallist, Charlton Debono.
Three of the five Gibraltarian athletes taking part in Brussels also competed at this year’s NatWest Island Games on OpenTrack, as part of a 16-strong Gibraltar team.
As always, if you have any feedback, requests, or want to see your athletes’ results on OpenTrack, feel free to get in touch at info@opentrack.run.