Brilliant bronze for Nancy as our teams impress in Italian heatwave

Tuesday 23rd June 2026

From Phil Mestecky

In Italy on Sunday, Scotland took on 17 other teams from across Europe plus USA and Mexico in the WMRA International U18 Mountain Running Cup.

It was to prove highly successful for Nancy Corrie in particular as the Harmeny AC athlete took a bronze medal – the first individual medal for a Scot in this event for 17 years.

With races starting at 11am and 11.45am, and temperatures of over 30 degrees, the Scotland teams were competing with the heat and conditions as much as the other athletes.

All eight ran brave and committed races to record team finishing positions of seventh for the women and sixth for the men, equalling the good team finishing positions from 2025.

And Nancy’s brilliant bronze was in fact the first individual medal at this event since the year she was born . . . 2009.

Both races started with a short tarmac section followed by a narrow and very steep climb where overtaking was nearly impossible.

This pinch point was to prove to be the crux of the race with the medallists all coming from the leading groups at that point.

Nancy’s fast start put her in second place at this key junction. She managed to overhaul the leader, Clara McKee from England, at around 2km but just wasn’t able to hold her on the steep and very rocky descent.

In the end she was also overhauled by a French athlete who came through to take silver with Nancy claiming an excellent bronze medal.

Behind her there was an impressive debut from Strathearn’s Lucia Connell who finished 19^th in her first year at this age group with Holly Simpson of Giffnock in 40^th and Anna Meek of Inverness in 44^th place also gaining valuable experience from the race for the first time.

In the men’s race, all four of our athletes found themselves queueing for a time at the bottleneck but then all pushed on throughout the course to pack well in the 20s.

Ben Hodson of Stewartry AC, Billy Sutherland of Ross County AC and Jack Foley of Moorfoot Runners enjoyed a good tussle among themselves with positions exchanged on several occasions.

In the end, Ben came through to finish in 20^th, Billy in 22^nd and Jack in 24^th. Jack’s performance was particularly noteworthy as he gained around 10 places in the second half of the race by good pace judgement and descending very well.

Seb Darlow of Gala Harriers also coped well with the heat and the technical descent and was closing in on his team-mates to cross the line in 29^th place, with less than a minute between all four Scots.

Our men finished as first Home Countries nation in the team scores with our women second Home Countries nation behind a very strong England team who took an overall team bronze.

Next year’s hosts will be Poland as the event rolls on next June to the ski resort of Szczyrk in the far South of the country.

Full results here:

Women: https://www.icron.it/live/remoteattivopublic/20264978/U18W

Men: https://www.icron.it/live/remoteattivopublic/20264978/U18M