Ten athletes (five men and five women due to the last-minute loss of Carlos Mayo and Isabel Barreiro) will represent Spain in the 26th edition of the 10,000-meter European Cup that is being held today in Pacé (France). The absence of May, who was looking to go up to the individual drawer for the third consecutive edition After finishing third in 2021 (with 27:25.00, the third Spanish mark in history) and second in 2022 (with 27:38.59), it is a hard stick for the aspirations and for the participation of the Aragonese born in Madrid to attend the World Cups in Budapest in August.
The quintet without him (20:50) will be made up of Rober Alaiz, who already starred in an outstanding performance in Pacé last year, finishing eighth with a personal best of 28:04.01 (being key in the conquest of collective silver), and who has just proclaimed himself runner-up in Spain in the 10,000 m in Burjassot with 28:08.46 (10th in the European ranking in 2023). Another member will be Juan Antonio ‘Chiki’ Pérez, a European Cup institution. In Pacé 2023 he will play the competition for the eighth time, all of them consecutive. In 2015, 2016 and 2017 the individual silver medal was hung; while with Spain he adds two golds, three silvers and one bronze. On April 15, she climbed to the third drawer of the podium in the Spanish 10 km Road Championship.
The third runner-up to repeat this year is Yago Rojo, that this 2023 is experiencing the year of his competitive emergence, first winning silver in the 10 km Spanish Championship with a personal best of 28:21 (the 14th Spanish in history) and later proclaiming himself champion of Spain in the half marathon. He will play his fifth consecutive European Cup after those of 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022. Another Madrid native like Jesus Ramos is the fourth and last of the members of 2022 who will return to the starting line. He does it after completing a superb spring, in which he has won the national titles of 5 and 10 km en route in Santander and Huelva, in both cases with a personal best of 13:48 and 28:16, tenths in history. . The men’s team is completed by the current Spanish champion of 10,000 Ilias Fifa, who ran in Burjassot in 27:59.76.
In women (8:10 p.m.), Spain presents a very competitive team, with several athletes among the best by registration mark, and in which the five members have lost 33 minutes in the 25 laps in 2023. The list is headed by bronze medalist in the Spanish Championship of 10,000 Cristina Ruiz, in what will be his first European Cup. Ruiz made her debut in 10,000 with a time of 32:08.70, first among those registered this course and 16th Spanish ever. The second rookie in the ‘Champions’ of the 25 laps is Laura Luengo, who has also crushed the clock in 2023. In her case in 10 km, in which the national bronze was hung in Huelva with 32:20, the sixth Spanish in history, and also in a half marathon, a distance in which she was proclaimed champion of Spain in Santander with 1:11 :12.
The women’s team is completed by another rookie and two experienced in the European Cup, who also know what it is to win the collective bronze in 2019. Maitane Melero He arrives after running in 32:50.33, precisely in Pacé. The two-time Spanish champion of 10,000 is good at the French track, because in 2022 she achieved a personal best there of 32: 08.57 to finish fifth (her best result of hers in four participations). Esther Navarrete, for her part, she finished fourth in the Spanish 10,000 m Championship with a personal best of 32:34.23 (the seventh best of the participants in Pacé in 2023), she has also run in 32:55 over 10 km en route, and will contest her third European Cup after those of 2019 and 2022. The fifth and last member is Laura Priego, who makes his debut with the national jersey and in 2023 has been crushing his personal bests one after another: 32:49.90 in 10,000 m, 32:54 in 10 km and 15:31.26 in 5000 m.
The 10,000 European Cup is a competition that has traditionally been good for Spain, since In the 25 editions that have been held, the men’s team has been on the podium 21 times (10 titles, eight silvers, three bronzes), and the women’s team has done so on 14 (three titles, five silver, six bronze), the last time in 2019.