Ruth Gitonga Mwihaki and Michael Selelo Saoli achieved a Kenyan double at the São Brás Cross, the first WMRA Mountain Running World Cup event of the year, in Castro Daire, Portugal, on Sunday, 19 April.
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The São Brás Cross made an immediate impression on its World Cup debut.
Classified as a classic up & down race, the 10.9km route with 628 metres of ascent was a fitting season opener for the World Cup.
In the women’s race, Great Britain’s defending World Cup champion Scout Adkin headed a breakaway group, closely followed by one of the breakout stars of last year’s World Cup, Nélie Clément of France, plus World Championships classic race runner-up Gitonga Mwihaki and Elle Twentyman, with Marie Nivet 15 seconds behind.
For the men, as expected, it was last year’s World Cup third-place finisher Selelo Saoli who set the early pace.
He was joined initially by a group of nine, including Théodore Klein of France, Great Britain’s 2019 World Cup champion Andrew Douglas and Matthew Knowles, the world junior champion in 2019.
The first gaps started opening in the long uphill taking the runners to the summit at 3.5km.
Adkin led Mwihaki and Clement was 30 seconds behind them, closely followed by Twentyman, with another gap back to Martina Falchetti and Nivet.
The uphill had a similar effect on the men’s race.
Saoli broke away from the group to take the lead, with Douglas just 10 seconds behind and closely followed by Oscar Subuh-Symons, Klein and Knowles.
