19th May 2011

CLITHEROE LEADS AVIVA GB&NI EUROPEAN CUP 10,000M TEAM

19 May 2011

European Indoor champion Helen Clitheroe (coach: John Nuttall), in her international track debut over the distance, leads the Aviva Great Britain and Northern Ireland team into next month’s European Cup 10,000m in Oslo (Saturday 4 June).

Clitheroe, who clocked a lifetime best over 3000m indoors at the Aviva Birmingham Grand Prix following a period of training at the UKA/London Marathon Altitude Training Camp in Kenya in January, further evidenced her deserved rise to prominence with an outstanding victory in Paris.

More recently she recorded another impressive victory in the Great Manchester 10k, the first British athlete to win that event since 2008, after a second period at altitude in Font Romeu (France) throughout April.

Clitheroe will be joined in Norway by European Junior cross country champion Charlotte Purdue (coach: Mick Woods) – the top European finisher in the 2011 IAAF World Cross Country Championships and UK junior record holder over 10,000m (32:36.75) – and John Beattie (coach: John Nuttall), a former European under-23 cross country team gold medallist, who was only marginally outside his lifetime best for 10,000m when clocking 28:42:63 at the Payton Jordan Invitational in California in early May.

AVIVA GB&NI TEAM

Men

John Beattie (John Nuttall)

Women

Helen Clitheroe (John Nuttall); Charlotte Purdue (Mick Woods)