15 May 2015

British 10km record holder Tom Bosworth (Coach: Andi Drake) will lead the GB & NI challenge at the 11th European Race Walking Cup to be held in Murcia in Spain on Sunday. 

Bosworth will be competing in the 20km walk this weekend as he seeks to continue his recent impressive form. The Leeds-based athlete set the 10km record in March in a time of 39:36  and was just outside his personal best over 20km in Lugano where he finished fourth recording 82:33. 

With the British Athletics qualifying time (84:00) for both Beijing and Rio already under his belt, Bosworth’s target is to better his 12th place in last summer’s European Championships in Zurich and improve Ian McCombie’s long standing British record of 82:03 set in the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988. 

Commonwealth champion Jo Atkinson (Maureen Jackson) will spearhead the British challenge in the Women’s 20km. She will be looking to target the 93:00 qualifying time for Beijing and return towards the sort of form that saw her finish 12th in this event in 2011. She currently leads the British rankings with her 94:51 set in Lugano in March. 

Emma Achurch (Steve Arnold) goes into the junior women’s 10km in fine form, having clocked a new personal best of 47.49 when finishing second in Lugano in March. The Leicester-based athlete has a European Junior Qualifying Standard (48:00) already in the bag so she will be targeting a top eight finish in Spain. 

The junior men’s 10km sees a strong trio of Cameron Corbishley (Chris Hobbs), Guy Thomas (Peter Selby) and Callum Wilkinson (Mick Graham) represent the GB & NI team, with the latter two making their debuts at the event. They all go into the race on the back of personal best performances and will look to beat Britain’s best ever team placing of 12th in 2000 and 2013. 

The action will be streamed live via the official website on Sunday. Results can also be found here: 

Timetable (BST):

7:00: 50km Senior Men

8:00: 10km Junior Men

9:30: 20km Senior Women

15:00: 10km Junior Women

16:15: 20km Senior Men