Pre Race Report 24 Hour World Championships

Reus and Nagy return to defend their titles at the 12th IAU 24 Hour World Championships. The 12th IAU 24 Hour World Championships will take place on July 1-2nd in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Florian (GER) and Katalin Nagy (USA) are the defending champions from the 11th edition of these championships held in Turin, Italy in 2015.

The 24 Hour event will be run around a 1.65km course in Victoria Park. There are over 300 athletes representing 41 federations who will be taking part in the event which also has a World Masters Championships attached to it.

In the men´s race, Reus will be leading a pack of a very deep field. Reus ran 263.899km in the least world championships. Current European Champion Dan Lawson (GBR) has run a distance of 261.843km in Albi, France. Yoshihiko Ishikawa (JPN) will also try to be in the mix for a podium place having run 263.127km last year in Japan.

Robbie Britton (GBR) and Andrzej Radzikowski (POL) with 261.140km and 258.228km respectively will be trying to make big moves as well at the front. Pete Kostelnick (USA) with 263.410km at the Desert Solstice and Dave Proctor (CAN) having run 257.093km in Turin will also try and move up the individual rankings.

If the men´s field is deep, the women´s field is nothing short of extraordinary. Nagy is returning this year to defend her title having run 244.490km in Turin but has not run the longest in the field. Also this year Patrycja Bereznowska (POL) has run 256.246km in Lodz to have the World´s Best Performance pending ratification. Maria Jansson (SWE) the current European champion ran 250.647km in 2016 to claim the European title.

Courtney Dauwalter (USA) and Aleksandra Niwinska (POL) having run 250.790km and 245.101km will try to get those coveted spots on the podium. Antje Krause (GER) with 235.228km and Jess Baker (GBR) having run 230.295km will try to lead their respective teams to podium as well.

This is one of the deepest fields we ever had in the world championships. It promises to be an exciting race.

Nadeem Khan
IAU Vice President
nadeem.khan@iau-ultramarathon.org

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