The Formentera athlete Andrea Romero achieved an agonising third place in the under-23 race of the Spanish Cross Country Club Championships, held last Sunday in conjunction with the XXXIX Itálica International Cross Country Race, in the town of Santiponce (Seville).
Romero: “I can’t wait to go to Dublin, I’m so motivated.”
The Spanish runner-up in the event, a result she achieved last February in Getafe, was only beaten by Carla Gallardo from Palencia and the Catalan Elia Saura, earning one of the automatic places (three in the case of the under-23 category) to form part of the Spanish national team for the European Cross Country Championships to be held in Dublin on 12th December.
It will be the third time that the GE Espamador trained athlete will be part of the national team at the European Cross Country Championships, after having gone to Šamorín in 2017 and Lisbon in 2019, both times as an under-20 athlete.
José Antonio Redolat’s protégée took third place when, with 600 metres to go, she overtook Maite González from Navarre, although she was unable to catch up with the two athletes who were competing for the victory. The Formentera athlete took 18 minutes and 43 seconds to finish the 5,445 metres that the under-23 runners had to complete on the circuit located among the Roman ruins of Itálica, hosting this competition for the first time in its history.
After absorbing the result and qualification, Andrea Romero said yesterday that she was “more aware of what happened at the weekend” and admitted to being “very happy” with her ticket to Dublin. “Last year was my first under-23 and because of Covid we couldn’t compete. This year I qualified for the outdoor European Championships, but three girls were ahead of me, there were only three places and I missed out. I had that nagging disappointment of being fourth and with cross country, which I’ve always loved, my main goal was to get in”, the Pitiusa athlete, from the Juventud Atlética Elche club, remembered with emotion.
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