Sarah Webster wins individual bronze and team silver and GB men team bronze in Bengaluru
While runners from Great Britain and Northern Ireland won medals in Turkey, the GB and NI 100km team won medals further afield in India on Saturday (December 8). Adrian Stott reports.
In temperatures well above 30C, both men and women won hard-earned team medals, with Sarah Webster claiming an excellent individual bronze medal.
Women’s race
Webster, along with France’s Florian Hot and Marie-Ange Brumelot, swapped places in the opening round.
Webster made a break and had a three-minute lead at one point, but as the race wore on and the temperature rose, he was overtaken first by Hoth, the defending champion from the last championships in Berlin in 2022, and then by Brumelot.
The two French runners stayed strong until the end. Hoth clocked 7:08:43 and Brumelot won silver in 7:12:22 to lead them to the team title.
Webster finished third in 7:19:18, Britain’s first individual medal at the 100km World Championships since Jo Zakrzewski won bronze in Spain in 2016.
Supported by Melissa Gibson who finished fifth in 7:35:27 and Julia Davies ninth in 8:01:05 Team GB & NI took the silver medals with the USA in third.
The harsh conditions saw several runners drop out, including Great Britain’s Caroline Turner, who struggled in the hot and humid conditions and retired after 80km, with GB & NI confident of three finishes for the team event. will have
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Men’s race
Japan’s Jumpei Yamaguchi, who entered the race with the fastest time in the world in 2024, lived up to his reputation by winning the men’s title in 6:12:17.Seemingly unaffected by the difficult conditions, his time was just seven seconds off his 2022 time of 6:12. :10 championship record.
France’s Guillaume Ruel led for a while after early sparring before an ankle injury forced him to retire before the halfway point, leaving Yamaguchi in control and convincingly beating Spain’s Antonio Aguilar to take silver in 6:25:54.
Japan’s Haruki Okayama took bronze in 6:37:54 with another Japanese runner, Tomoya Watanabe, fourth in 6:37:55.
This ensured Japan comfortably won the men’s team title with an overall time of 19:30:09.
British bronze medalists
Spain, with Aguilar supported by Felix Ponte in fifth and Manel Deli in 17th, won the silver medals.
The British men were led home by Alex Milne, who finished in the top 10 of the 90km Friends Marathon in June.Respecting the conditions, the British all ran well-paced races, finishing with five runners in the top 20, more than any other country.
Jarlath McKenna was ninth in 6:51:20, James Turner was 11th in 6:53:17, Joe Turner was 13th in 6:53:43 and Chris Richardson was 16th in 6:56. ;16: Dougie Selman is a bit further back in 29th place with a time of 7:22:48.
In the Masters World Championships held as part of the race, Sarah Webster won gold in the W45 category and Jarlath McKenna won bronze in the M40 category.
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