24 October 2016 

Dan Lawson became the first British male athlete to win the IAU European 24 Hour Championships in Albi, France this weekend, and also led the British men’s team to the silver medal.

Lawson ran a total of 261.843km (162 miles) within the 24 hours, finishing almost 3km ahead of the Czech Republic athlete Ondrej Velicka and France’s Stephane Ruel. It was an improvement by almost 20km on his previous personal best and also saw him move up to fourth on the British all-time list.

Lawson was backed up by solid performances from Marco Consani (8^th) and James Elson (22^nd), who’s distances of 250.283km and 231.163km counted towards the combined team total and saw them grab the silver behind the French squad.

Steve Holyoak and Paddy Robbins ran distances of 214,141km and 204,915km respectively to back up the top three athlete’s performances. However, last year’s bronze medallist Robbie Britton faced problems with his knees halfway through the race which ultimately saw his event come to an end at 107,293km.

There were mixed performances for the women’s team but the highest placed finisher was debutant Ally Young who completed the 24 hour event with a final distance of 215,253km in 18^th. Izzy Wykes ended her campaign with 190,236km (41^st), Debbie Martin Consani 178,069km (49^th) and Sharon Law with 92,871km (76^th) which saw the team finish 10^th overall.

Full results can be seen at http://www.iau-ultramarathon.org  or http://www.breizhchrono.com