Birthday win for Edris at Cross Della Vallagarina

Ethiopian teenager Muktar Edris took a gun-to-tape win in the men’s 9 km race at the 36th edition of the Cross della Vallagarina with a gap of 42 seconds over Italian Stefano La Rosa and nine-time European cross-country champion Sergiy Lebid in a breath-taking final sprint on Sunday (13).

In the women’s 6km race, Silvia La Barbera held off Valeria Roffino in an all-Italian battle.

Edris a class apart

At the Campaccio IAAF Cross Country Permit meeting in San Giorgio su Legnano last week, Muktar Edris won by a very narrow margin in a dramatic final sprint. Here in Rovereto on his 19th birthday his tactic was completely different. With a fast start, he took the lead from the early stages and pushed hard to open up a huge gap over the chasing group formed by Sergiy Lebid, Stefano La Rosa and Kenyan Robert Ndiwa. His gap grew lap after lap.

There was competition for the second place. Edris, the World junior 5000m champion, was simply too strong and built up a gap of 28 seconds during the third of eight laps of the fascinating but challenging hilly course.

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