Tough day but Scotland hill runners relish Snowdon challenge

Sunday 20th July 2025

From Angela Mudge

The Italian men stole the show at this year’s Snowdon International with a clean sweep.

In hot conditions they dominated with first and second to the summit and opened the gap on the descent to take the top three places. Scotland were third team home after England.

In the women’s race, Edinburgh AC athlete Nancy Scott won, leading from the gun and racing for England. Again, Italy were first, Engladn second and Scotland in third.

The conditions were tough, times were down on previous years in the hot conditions and many runners suffered from heat exhaustion collapsing on the finish line.

In this year’s event most of the Scotland team were first time Senior internationals with only Catriona MacDonald (Bellahouston Road Runners) racing for Scotland previously.

Harris Pagett finishes strongly in Wales

Harris Pagett (Strathearn Harriers, U23) had a great descent, overtaking numerous runners to finish 10th in the International field in 75.39.

Dan Dry (Shettleston) wasn’t far behind in 11th and Angus Wright (Edinburgh Uni Hare and Hounds, U23) put on a brave race finishing in 13th after going over on his ankle at the start of the descent.

Kirsty Oldham (Edinburgh Uni) had a brilliant run in her first Scottish vest to finish in fifth in 84.25; Cat MacDonald was eighth and Helen Leigh (Inverness) was ninth.

Snowdon is always a great race but this year athletes had to cope with 350 tourists queuing to reach the summit. Negotiating tourists and the technical terrain at the summit made the descent more challenging than usual.

Thanks to Stephen and his team for hosting another great edition of the Snowdon International.

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Tags: hill running, Snowdon