As reported in the previous weeks, Pegasus AC’s junior mountain runner Jason Wilson was selected to run for Ireland Under 20s at the European Mountain Running Championships for the very first time.  These were held in Cauterets, a small town situated high in the Pyrenees on the French / Spanish border.  The race was held on 8th July 2007 but required teams to arrive a couple of days earlier to view the course and take part in the opening ceremony along with the 22 other participating countries.

Conditions on the day were quite mild, with the modest temperature of 18oC more similar to our own (back a month ago)!  The race started among the clouds 1000m above sea level at the early time of 9.30am with the 36 junior contenders heading off along the steep undulating ascent towards the summit.  The pace was hectic; the quality more like a world championship event than a European one.  The long 5.2 mile course took in 1100m of climbing which only took Ballymoney lad Jason 1:03:19 to complete.  The cheers over the last mile from the couple of hundred spectators at the summit spurred him on to pull away from one of his Irish team mates and go in pursuit of a tiring Slovakian athlete.  Despite his lung bursting effort, he couldn’t manage to catch the Slovakian runner Marcus Rok and ended up in 33rd position and 2nd out of the Irish runners.  The first Irish junior home was Michael Dowling of West in 30th position.  The junior podium was awash with Turkish runners with Mehmet Akkoyun flying home for his first European title.

Overall, 13 athletes travelled over with team managers being Marty McVeigh, Brendan Lawlor and Gerry Brady.  The trip proved a great success with the Irish giving a great account of themselves at this very tough event.