Two years after finishing third at the European Cup 10,000m, Germany’s Sabrina Mockenhaupt is the champion. Her winning performance came on a superb night of athletics in Pravets, Bulgaria, on Saturday which showed experience counts for everything.
Mockenhaupt, 32, won the women’s race in the quickest time by a European athlete this year and Spain’s Sergio Sanchez, 30, is the men’s champion.
Spain retained the women’s title they had won in Bilbao 12 months ago while Italy, fourth then, climbed to the top of the podium this time to win the men’s team event.
Twice a winner of the Cologne Marathon, once a champion in Frankfurt and a bronze medallist in the 3000m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Madrid in 2005, Mockenhaupt is a runner of outstanding consistency, whatever the weather, whatever the surface.
In this central western Bulgarian province, 60km from Sofia, it was a summer’s evening where she prevailed to secure the European 10,000m Cup title with a run that reflected her strength.
She triumphed by over 30 seconds in 32:13.64, being in total command of the final stages of the race.
Mockenhaupt was taking in the plaudits by the time Christelle Daunay, of France, improved on her third place from last year by finishing second in 32:46.39 with Serbia’s Olivera Jevtic next in 32:52.56.
Such was the pace of the race that some of the leading contenders did not even finish, including Turkey’s double European champion Elvan Abeyelegesse, Ana Dulce Felix, of Portugal, and Hungary’s Krisztina Papp.
But Mockenhaupt will know there is still room for improvement because her time was still outside of the 32:05 needed as a B qualification for the World Championships in Moscow.
Spain had three women in the first 15 – Sonia Bejarno (6th in 33:40.35), Judith Pla (7th in 33:56.98) and Maria Azucena Diaz (15th in 34:23.57) – to take the team title from Great Britain and Belarus.
Back in 2010, Sanchez won silver in the 3000m at the World Indoor Championships in Doha as American Bernard Lagat beat him by 1.58 seconds in a tremendous final.
But in Pravets, the Spaniard showed a fine kick in the home straight as he triumphed in 28:31.75 from Halil Akkas, of Turkey, who was second in 28:31.82, with Italy’s Ahmed El Mazoiry third in 28:36.40.
Sanchez and Akkas produced the eighth and ninth quickest times respectively by European athletes this summer but it was the overall strength of the Italians which brought them the team title.
Behind El Mazoiry, Stefano La Rosa was then fourth in 28:51.39 with Andrea Lalli, the SPAR European cross country champion, seventh in 29:05.13. Those leading performances saw Italy make the climb up the table to beat defending champions Spain who had Manuel Angel Penas eighth in 29:17.78 and Jose Espana (12th in 29:34.23) adding to Sanchez’s individual glory.
[…] Two years after finishing third at the European Cup 10,000m, Germany’s Sabrina Mockenhaupt is the champion. Her winning performance came on a superb night of athletics in Pravets, Bulgaria, on Saturday which showed experience counts for everything. Mockenhaupt, 32, won the women’s race in the quickest time by a European athlete this year and Sp… Time-to-Run Deutschland […]