13 May 2013

GB & NI’s Sharon Law claimed a superb European bronze medal at the IAU World 24 Hour Championships in Holland this weekend.

The Garscube Harriers athlete from Glasgow covered a total distance of 226.170k  (140 miles 876 yards) over the relentless 2.3km loop to finish third on the day and in the process move to seventh place on the UK all time list and eclipse the Scottish record held by her training partner and GB & NI teammate Debbie Martin-Consani.

Law also broke the Scottish women’s 200km record, also previously held by Martin-Consani, en route to the finish as she went through the distance in a time of 20:46:01.

Martin-Consani also broke her old record with 220.037km to move to eighth on the all time list and was backed up by Emily Gelder with 212.213km, Karen Hathaway, who ran a personal best of 210.876km, and Lizzy Hawker (131.905km) to secure a fine European team silver medal for GB & NI behind France.

In the World team competition, GB & NI finished just outside of the medals in fourth place, with the USA winning gold from Japan.

The women’s race was won by Japanese runner Mami Kudo with a new world road best performance of 252.205km (156 miles 1254 yards), beating the previous mark set by GB & NI’s Lizzy Hawker by just over 5km.

The GB & NI men’s team finished sixth place in the world and fourth out of the European teams. There were outstanding personal bests for Steve Holyoak who finished in 11th place (fifth in Europe) recording 246.155km (152 miles 1678 yards) and GB & NI debutant Robbie Britton who completed 239.008km (148 miles 902 yards). They were backed up by Paddy Robbins with 211.238km, John Pares with 203.175km and Matt Moroz with 169.372km.

The overall male winner was John Olsen of the USA with a 2013 world leading performance of 269.275km (167 miles 1288 yards).

To find out more and full results please visit the IAU site here or the local Steenbergen race site here