Ugandan teenager Mercyline Chelangat, Victor Kiplangat and Jacob Kiplimo put up great performances at the 39th edition of the Della Vallagarina Cross Country Championships on Sunday, as Africa dominated proceedings.
The trio all earned top positions, Chelangat emerging third in the senior women’s race, behind former winner Silvia La Barbera (22:00) and winner, world junior 5000m silver medallist Alemitu Hawi from Ethiopia.
Chelangat posted 22:02, off an undulating looped course in the valleys just outside Rovereto, a city and comune in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River.
The other Ugandan duo Victor Kiplangat and Jacob Kiplimo shared an identical time of 26:54 in third and fourth respectively in the men’s race just after Kenyan Rodgers Maiyo who defeated world junior cross-country silver medallist Geoffrey Korir by two seconds in 26:40.
Kiplangat and Kiplimo will have the Uganda’s support at next year’s IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Kampala and will later travel back to Italy for the Cross Della Vallagarina junior race in 2019.
