Scotland team heads for Vertical Nasego – Mountain Running preview

Wednesday 30th August 2023

Above: Scout Adkin and Alice Goodall are among those on the team. Pic: Bobby Gavin

It’s not often that a Scotland team can be comprised of a current U23 European 10,000m champion, GB Cross Country representatives & Scottish National Champions, and a European Mountain Running Champion and podium finishers.

In Saturday’s Vertical Nasego race, Scotland will be represented by men’s and women’s teams packed with endurance talent across a variety of surfaces to tackle the latest Valsir Mountain Running World Cup race at one of Italy’s premier mountain running events.

The women’s team, comprising of Scout Adkin, Kirsty Dickson, Alice Goodall and Holly Page, have all brought home GB team medals from recent World and European Mountain and Trail Running Championships.

Scout, Kirsty and Holly were European Uphill Team gold medallists from last year where Scout herself won an individual bronze medal in the up & down race at La Palma. Alice, with a top-10 individual finish, along with Scout and Holly were World up & down silver medallists at the recent championships in Innsbruck, so all of them will be looking to feature high in the rankings at the end of Saturday’s race.

The men’s team brings forward a blend of seasoned GB internationals such as Jamie Crowe and Jacob Adkin, with experienced domestic hill runners Alasdair Campbell and Rory Abernethy looking to build on their previous Scottish international races at Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and the Nations Cup respectively.

For multiple Scottish Champion and GB cross country representative, Jamie, this will be a first competitive outing in a senior uphill-only race but will need to look no further for inspiration to teammate Jacob with various uphill racing accolades as a former European Champion and a top-5 World Uphill finish under his belt in recent years.

Saturday’s race is a challenging 4.2km with approx. 1,000m of vertical ascent (hence the name Vertical Nasego).

It’s a format that siblings Scout and Jacob are very experienced in and have had some notable results on the international stage in recent years.

For others on the team this will represent an excellent opportunity to race against some of the continent’s best athletes at this discipline. The race records are held by 2023 World Uphill Champions Patrick Kipngeno (Kenya) and Andrea Mayr (Austria) so that gives an indication of the standard our Scottish athletes will contend with.

Some of the team, including other recent GB and Scottish internationalists Naomi Lang, Ross Gollan and Andy Douglas, will be racing again on the Sunday morning for the Trofeo Nasego race (20.6km up&down, 1,300m elevation gain) so it will be an exciting weekend of trail and mountain racing involving Scots out on the continent.

By Andy Douglas, Team Manager