The Cross International of Itálica, which will take place in Seville this Sunday and which will in turn act as the Spanish Club Championship, will determine which athletes will represent the Spanish team in the European Cross Country Championships that the Turkish city will host. from Antalya on December 8. And there are several people from Burgos who will compete this weekend in order to achieve good results that will allow them to attend the long-awaited continental event.
Cristina Ruiz and Pablo Sánchez will try to sneak into the top positions of the senior races in order to attract the attention of the national coach, Pepe Peiró, while the Arandino Rubén Álvarez, an athlete from the University of Burgos, has before him his last opportunity in the sub category. -23, from which he wants to say goodbye by participating in the European Championship. He has prepared thoroughly for it, not like Dani Arce who will attend the Cross de Itálica but who has no aspirations beyond enjoying competing at a time of the season in which he is concentrated at the Sierra High Performance Center Snowfall.
There will be six athletes representing Spain in Türkiye for each sex and category (sub-20, sub-23 and absolute). According to the official criteria published by the Spanish Athletics Federation, the first three finishers in the Cross de Itálica will be the ones who get their ticket directly to the European Championship.
The other three names of each team will be pending the decision of the coach, so Cristina Ruiz, Pablo Sánchez and Rubén Álvarez aim to finish on the podium in their respective races in order to obtain a direct ticket to Turkey.
«Since the Cross de Atapuerca I have not competed. I have been preparing thoroughly and in these two weeks the truth is that the training has gone very well. I can fight for everything because I feel better than ever,” confesses Rubén Álvarez, who is traveling to Seville today and who is as ambitious as Cristina Ruiz who knows that “I would have many options if I were one of the first six, as already happened in Atapuerca.
The one who will not attend the event is Lidia Campo, who although she participated in the Atapuerca Cross and reaped great sensations, has the European road race as her goal.
