Commonwealth Mountain and Ultra Running Championships
Over 200 selected athletes representing 14 Federations will be in Keswick, Cumbria this weekend for the inaugural Commonwealth Mountain and Ultra Running Championships.
Four events make up the championships. The mountain runners have an uphill only race on Friday 17th on a 12km course that starts at Fitz Park and finishes at the top of Skiddaw.
On Sunday 20th there will be an up and down race that starts and finishes at Fitz Park and takes in a 12km course on Latrigg.
The Isle of Man will be sending a strong team that includes top British fell exponent Lloyd Taggart and current Manx champion Simon Skillicorn. Other team members are Nigel Armstrong, Richard Jamieson and Andy Cannell with Andy Watson traveling as team manager and racing in the open race om Sunday. The Manxies will be facing some very tough competition against runners of the calibre of 6 times World Mountain Running Champion Jonathan Wyatt from New Zealand. It will however be a fantastic experience for them all.
The ultra racing gets the championships started on Thursday 17th with a 24hr race held entirely in Fitz Park. The Island will be represented by Ben Scott and ultra expert Bethany Clague. Australia are expected to dominate the mens race with England favourites for the ladies.
A 100km race completes the championships on the Saturday.
Full details can be found on cumbriacommonwealthchampionships.org
Filed under: MFR News
Mightily impressed by the performaces of the Manx competitors in the Commonwealth Championships. Both Ben and Bethany took high placings in their super endurance event . The fell runners then ran very good times against international standard competition in both the uphill only race and the traditional up and down race. They placed good times in both races, beating Northern Ireland on both occasions, despite, I think, being the only team to field the same runners for both races.
The uphill only race must have been painful, they were racing longer than the up and down course!
Yes great effort by all the Manx team.
Many thanks to SLS for their support and Andy Watson for all his help.
Well done team against what looked like very tough opposition. Wish they had the same races in the island games, we would kick arse!