Important development for mountain running in Great Britain:first UKA Mountain Running Championships

Steve Vernon and Victoria Wilkinson won the inaugural UKA Mountain Running Championships in Keswick on Sunday 12. June 2011, held in conjunction with the European Mountain Running Championships Trial (selection race for UK team that will be run in Bursa at the beginning of July) and incorporating the second round of the McCain Mountain Running Challenge.
It means that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will go to have their National title but this is the first Great Britain Championships!

The senior men's race - which tackled 1100m of ascent over 12.2km to the summit of Skiddaw - was one of the strongest ever domestic fields for an uphill race.
Vernon, an experienced Great Britain and Northern Ireland mountain running and cross country representative, took an early lead from Andi Jones and the pair pulled well clear of the field with Nick Swinburn, over one minute behind, taking bronze.
In the women's race over 8.9km with 900m of ascent, Wilkinson, also a seasoned mountain running internationalist, pulled through the field to take victory ahead of Lizzie Adams and Emma Clayton.
The junior titles went to up and coming Scottish athletes Garry Rankin and Scout Adkin.
Rankin, 15. in the WMRA Youth Mountain Running Challenge in Italy last year, won the 8.9km junior men's race, Dominic Mahoney took silver in spite of a heavy fall near the top of the course, and bronze went to Jack Ross.
Adkin, 13. in the WMRA Youth Mountain Running Challenge event, had a fine run to win the junior ladies race over 3.8km with 395m of ascent, with Ffion Price and Beckie Taylor taking silver and bronze respectively.
The race was the second round of the UKA McCain mountain running challenge - this is being held this year over three mountain races in May, June and August ( one up hill, and two up an down), with a total prize find of £,6,100. This is the second year we have been able to hold the challenge series and it is providing new and quality mountain running competition in the UK.
This year we have also been able to hold a mountain running training camp - something which we hope will become an annual event.
This kind of activity show very clear which could be one right road for promoting everwhere mountain running as discipline of athletics: certainly UKA will receive great benefits from this experiences

News and photo by Sarah Rowell (UKA)

Photo: the two top men runner of the race.