After so many near misses, Grovdal finally gets her senior gold in Dublin, from European Athletics

Karoline Grovdal takes her Senior gold ! 12/12/21, photo courtesy of European Athletics

Karoline Grovdal wanted this title really bad. She pushed and pushed, one tough meter lead on Meraf Bahta, one tough meter after another. The course was honest, and crowd was ecstatic. This is the EA article on the exciting race from today. We also suggest that you watch the Eurovision sport coverage of the amazing day of racing! Great coverage shows that cross country can be covered well around the world (check out NCAA Xc from a few weeks ago and East Bay from yesterday).

Karoline Grovdal, Norway takes gold in individual Senior Men and Women, photo by European Athletics

The last five editions of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships have seen Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal on the podium each time, but after four bronze medals and a silver, the latter two years ago in Lisbon, she finally struck gold in Fingal-Dublin on Sunday.

Into the bargain it was a winning return to the city where she won the U20 title 12 years ago in 2009, the last time Ireland staged these championships, and she made it a Norwegian double victory after Jakob Ingebrigtsen was victorious in the senior men’s race a little earlier in the afternoon.

The race started with Sweden’s Meraf Bahta and Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen going straight to the fronbt and pushing the pace but they were soon joined by Turkey’s four-time defending champion Yasemin Can, Bahta’s compatriot and 2019 bronze medallist Samwarit Mengsteab, Israel’s Selamawit Teferi, as well as briefly FranceÂ´s Mekdes Woldu.

Woldu soon lost contact with the leading group, but the five forged ahead and were together two kilometres into the race with Grovdal and Great Britain’s Jessica Judd 20 metres further back.

To read the whole story and enjoy the social media, please click here: https://european-athletics.com/news/grovdal-finally-gets-her-senior-gold-medal-

Author

Larry Eder

Larry Eder has had a 51-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."

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