Scots land global medals at World Mountain and Trail Champs

Monday 7th November 2022

Holly Page, Naomi Lang and Scout Adkin landed World Champs silver in the up-and-down race in Thailand

From Angela Mudge in Thailand

Scottish athletes formed a strong cohort with he GB and NI time at the first World Mountain and Trail Running Champs in Thailand – with 11 Scots involved.

And what a collective performance they and the British team delivered with a whole host of strong runs and team medals achieved.

Many congratulations to all the athletes involved and their families and coaches as well as our own Angela Mudge and Adrian Stott who were in team management roles.

The Senior Women won team silver in both the uphill only and the classic up-and-down events at Chiang Mai.

Conditions were testing throughout the three days of competition with temperatures reaching the low 30s and 65 percent humidity.

The team travelled out a week early to help acclimatise to the heat and recover from the long-haul flight. Thailand is seven hours ahead of the UK and this definitely disrupted sleep patterns for the athletes (and staff).

Courses climbed the mountain through the jungle behind the city of Chiang Mai.

On a mixture of technical single track and 4-wheel drive tracks, with a flat one mile run-in to the hill from the event centre. The twisting single track made over-taking a challenge on both the climb and especially the descents.

The Senior Women’s team took silvers in the uphill only race with Holly Page (send from right) and Scout Adkin (right) the third and first British finishers

Scout Adkin led the Senior Women home in both the uphill only (11^th) and the up-and-down (fifth) events.

After the uphill race, Scout said: ‘I’m really happy with the team result. It is great to get a silver at the Worlds.

‘But I am disappointed in my own performance. I just struggled with the heat and humidity, and a lot of travel. I had a very bad stitch the whole way as well. But I am pleased that we have all come inside the top 20.’

The Senior Women raced at 11am on both days and bore the brunt of the heat on the tough climb. Holly Page also counted in both teams and had a superb run in the up-and-down to finish in the top ten at her first World Championships in eighth and 16^th in the uphill only.

Naomi Lang, called up at very short notice due to an athlete withdrawing through injury, was the final counter in the up-and-down team in 25^th. Ugandans were first and second in the up-and down event and America’s Allie McLaughlin took the uphill win.

80% sweat, 10% water, 10% lactic… epic effort by the team today ? pic.twitter.com/hexcvAGRzI

— Andrew Douglas (@andoug_run) November 6, 2022

In the Men’s up-and-down event Andy Douglas once again led the GB Senior men home finishing strongly in 17^th place.

In their first international appearances for GB, Ross Gollan (20^th) and Sasha Chepelen (28^th) had good runs to help the team finish in fifth position.

Once again Ugandans stole the show, taking four of the top fifth positions.

In the Men’s Uphill only race on the Friday, the GB and NI team finished in fifth place. Jacob Adkin was the third counter as he finished 22nd.

Fraser Gilmour landed team bronze with GB and NI in Thailand

In the Junior Men, Fraser Gilmour had an excellent run to finish 10^th, taking advantage of his skill on the descent and speed on the flat run in. Again, the Ugandans dominated taking the top four positions. The Junior Men’s teams team took team bronze, finishing a half point behind France.

In the short trail event Kris Jones (the Welsh athlete from Dundee Hawkhill Harriers) had a brilliant run to take fifth in his first GB trail international, helping the team take bronze.

Jon Albon won individual bronze. Catriona Graves finished 22^nd and another team bronze for the UK tally.

In the long trail events Ryan Smith and Meryl Cooper didn’t perform as well as they hoped, the grueling conditions tested them to the limit over the 80k distance. They finished 39^th and 34^th respectively.

The GB junior women stole the show for the event taking individual gold (Jess Bailey) and silver (Rebecca Flaherty) and team gold.

Bearing in mind the tough conditions, GB and NI had a very successful championship taking home three individual and six team medals.