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Steve gains selection for European Mountain Championships

Steve Vernon climbs through the mist on Mt. Snowdon

Steve Vernon climbs through the mist on Mt. Snowdon

Stockport Harrier Steve Vernon secured his place in the Great Britain team for the European Mountain Championships in Austria next month.

The 24-year-old made selection for the team after finishing second in his first ever mountain race on Sunday at the UK Mountain Championship race up Mount Snowdon, in North Wales.

Steve who ran for Great Britain at this year's World Cross Country Championships was battling for a place in the team against some of the top mountain runners in the country.

Only the first two at the top of the gruelling six mile run were guaranteed a place in the 4 man team that will hope to challenge the strong continental mountain runners in the Austrian Alps in 3 weeks time.

Steve, who is based at the UK Athletics Endurance centre in London, had recently spent a week training in and around Snowdon but had never before raced a mountain event.

He said “training on the mountains and actually racing up them is a different matter”.

The race was won by Salford’s mountain runner Andy Jones who finished fourth in last years World Championship event.

The Salford Harrier’s experience at mountain running eventually told as the pair pushed hard all the way up the top of Snowdon, Jones opened up a gap on the Stockport runner up the final steep rocky climb that was covered in mist by the time they both got to the top.

They had both smashed the previous year's course record by over 2 minutes in the process, Jones winning the race inside 52 minutes and the Stockport runner just over 53.

The pair will be joined by Billy Burns who is based in Switzerland and Martin Cox, who were both pre-selected for the European Championships.

Steve said the team has a great chance of winning medals for the first time in a long while.

Scott takes another bronze

After his 400 metre bronze medal run in the Greater Manchester Championships, Scott Caine put in another medal winning performance to take bronze again, this time at the North of England Senior Championships, held at Sport City, Manchester in a time of 48.44 seconds.

This coming Sunday is the third young athletes track and field league match at Longford Park Stadium, Trafford, the first event gets underway at 12.00pm.

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