Darragh McElhinney Selected to Represent Europe - January 2019

Bantry AC's Darragh McElhinney Selected on European U20 Mixed Relay Team

Stirling, Scotland

Saturday January 12th 2019

darragh mcelhinney irish examiner january 2018

Darragh McElhinney - Photo: Irish Examiner

Darragh McElhinney, Bantry AC, has been selected to represent Europe on the Under-20 Mixed-Relay team, at next month's Simplyhealth Great Stirling XCountry, in Stirling, Scotland. Darragh's selection comes following his fine performance at last Sunday's European Cross-Country Championships, in Tilburg, Netherlands. The event moves to Stirling next year, having been held in Edinburgh for many years.

european athletics team great stirling cross country 2019

European Team for Stirling 2019

European Athletics Press Release

Seven individual medallists from the recent SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Tilburg have been named on Team Europe for the Simplyhealth Great Stirling XCountry, a European Athletics Cross Country Permit Meeting, on 12th January next.

The event which was previously staged in Edinburgh, will be held in the beautiful city of Stirling for the first time in 2019. Set against the impressive backdrop of Stirling Castle, the event will feature some of the world’s best athletes battling it out across challenging terrain.

World class runners from Great Britain & Northern Ireland, Team Europe and Team USA will compete across a variety of disciplines for the overall title. The event is completely free to spectate, and will be shown live on the day, on BBC Sport, from 1:15pm to 3:15pm. For more information, visit greatrun.org/xcountry

Team Europe ran out victorious, in Edinburgh, last January, and there will be particularly high hopes of an individual victory in the senior men’s 8km. The European team features four of the top eight finishers from Tilburg, including silver and bronze medallists Isaac Kimeli, (Belgium), and Aras Kaya (Turkey) - the latter also finishing third in Edinburgh, last January.

Fifth and eighth respectively, Sweden’s Napoleon Solomon and Spain’s Adel Mechaal have also been named on Team Europe, while silver and bronze medallists in the U23 race in Tilburg, Samuel Fitwi (Germany) and Hugo Hay (France) will join their senior counterparts.

The senior women’s 6km team is led by the recently crowned European U23 cross country champion Anna Emilie Moller who picked up Denmark’s second-ever gold medal in SPAR European Cross Country Championships history in Tilburg.

Moller is joined by silver medallist Anna Gehring, while her German teammate, Elena Burkard, who finished sixth in Tilburg, is the highest finisher from the senior race to be named on the team. Poland’s Anna Gosk has also been called up, with two more places yet to be confirmed.

In a change to the match programme, the mixed relay - two men and two women - will be a scoring event for the first time, and will conclude the match. Team Europe will be represented by the gold medal-winning Spanish quartet from Tilburg - Saul Ordonez, Esther Guerrero, Victor Ruiz and Solange Pereira - although the British team will be strengthened by the inclusion of Laura Muir to their ranks.

Muir will make her season’s debut in Stirling, on the road to the Glasgow 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships, which will be held from 1st to 3rd March 2019.

Meanwhile, the U20 quartet representing Team Europe is headed by European U20 3000m champion Delia Sclabas (Switzerland), also the silver medallist in the U20 race in Tilburg. She is joined by teammate Sibylle Haring, France’s Valentin Bresc and Ireland’s Darragh McElhinney

darragh mcelhinney tilburg 2018a photo sam barnes sportsfile