2013 European Cross Country Championships
The 2013 European Cross Country Championships was the 20th edition of the cross country running competition for European athletes which was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 8 December 2013. The senior individual winners were Alemayehu Bezabeh of Spain and Sophie Duarte of France. A record 571 runners from 37 nations entered the competition, making it Serbia's largest international athletics event in over forty years.
In the women's senior race Ireland's Fionnuala Britton was the defending champion, but she failed to win a third straight title and ended the race in fourth. Sophie Duarte took the lead in the penultimate lap and ran on her own over the last lap to take her first European gold medal at the age of 32. The 2011 minor medallists Ana Dulce Félix of Portugal and Great Britain's Gemma Steel closely raced each other in the final lap, with the British runner gaining the edge over the Portuguese on this occasion. Steel headed the British women to the team title, while Duarte led France to second and Spain took the bronze medals.
Andrea Lalli entered the men's senior race as champion and fellow 2012 medallists Hassan Chahdi and Daniele Meucci were also present. None of the three reached the podium on this occasion. The leading pack was soon whittled to two runners: 2009 champion Alemayehu Bezabeh and Polat Kemboi Arıkan of Turkey. Bezabeh extended his lead to over twenty seconds by the time he crossed the finish line. Arıkan was a clear second and British athlete Andy Vernon produced a fast finish to edge Belgium's Jeroen D'Hoedt to the bronze medal. Bezabeh headed up the Spanish team victory, followed by D'Hoedt's Belgium and Vernon's British side.
In the under-23 races Pieter-Jan Hannes of Belgium won the men's race and Great Britain topped the team rankings. Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands was dominant in the women's under-23 race, where the British under-23 team easily won the team gold with five women in the top eight. The junior men's race saw Turkey's Ali Kaya come out on top in a two-man race against Belgium's Isaac Kimeli. Women's junior champion Emelia Gorecka won a fourth straight junior team title for Great Britain and also her fourth straight podium finish. She was unrivalled and won by a margin of ten seconds.
Three of the six event winners were born in East Africa and gained European citizenship. Three of the individual silver medallists were also born outside of Europe: Arıkan in the men's senior race, Kimeli in the men's junior race, and Sofia Ennaoui in the women's junior race. This prompted concern of growing African participation in the European event – the falling interest in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, partly due to a prolonged period of African dominance of the competition, had recently led to the world event being reduced to a biennial event. Excitement over Bezabeh's large margin of victory was also tempered by discussion of his doping ban stemming from Operación Galgo, which had expired at the beginning of the year.
Race results
Senior men
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| Alemayehu Bezabeh | 29:11 | ||
| Polat Kemboi Arıkan | 29:32 | ||
| Andy Vernon | 29:35 | ||
| 4 | Jeroen D'Hoedt | 29:35 | |
| 5 | Hassan Chahdi | 29:40 | |
| 6 | Mohamed Marhum | 29:46 | |
| 7 | Richard Ringer | 29:49 | |
| 8 | Bashir Abdi | 29:53 | |
| 9 | Koen Naert | 29:54 | |
| 10 | El Hassane Ben Lkhainouch | 29:56 | |
| 11 | Iván Fernández | 29:58 | |
| 12 | Tom Farrell | 29:59 |
| Rank | Team | Points |
Bezabeh Marhum Fernández Antonio Dávid Jímenez Antonio Abadía Javier Guerra | 31 | |
D'Hoedt Abdi Naert Soufiane Bouchikhi Lander Tijtgat Abdelhadi El Hachimi | 49 | |
Vernon Farrell Keith Gerrard Adam Hickey Charlie Hulson Frank Tickner | 60 | |
| 4 | 66 | |
| 5 | 69 | |
| 6 | 90 | |
| 7 | 105 | |
| 8 | 151 |
Senior women
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| Sophie Duarte | 26:34 | ||
| Gemma Steel | 26:39 | ||
| Dulce Félix | 26:41 | ||
| 4 | Fionnuala Britton | 26:45 | |
| 5 | Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal | 26:52 | |
| 6 | Almensh Belete | 27:00 | |
| 7 | Julia Bleasdale | 27:02 | |
| 8 | Veronica Inglese | 27:12 | |
| 9 | Carla Salomé Rocha | 27:13 | |
| 10 | Iris Maria Fuentes-Pila | 27:17 | |
| 11 | Lauren Howarth | 27:18 | |
| 12 | Clémence Calvin | 27:25 |
| Rank | Team | Points |
Steel Bleasdale Howarth Steph Twell Katie Brough Lauren Deadman | 35 | |
Duarte Calvin Christine Bardelle Laila Traby Laurane Picoche Claire Perraux | 54 | |
Fuentes-Pila Diana Martín Lidia Rodríguez Marta Silvestre Teresa Urbina Alba García | 61 | |
| 4 | 97 | |
| 5 | 109 | |
| 6 | 115 | |
| 7 | 117 | |
| 8 | 197 |
Under-23 men
| Rank | Team | Points |
Caldwell Hawkins Hay Dewi Griffiths Richard Goodman Jack Goodwin | 40 | |
Strebkov Siruk Oleksandr Kuzmichov Igor Porozov | 72 | |
Romain Collenot-Spriet Francois Barrer Djilali Bedrani Youssef Mekdafou Michael Gras Sofiane Boulekouane | 78 |
Under-23 women
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| Sifan Hassan | 19:40 | ||
| Amela Terzić | 19:46 | ||
| Charlotte Purdue | 19:49 | ||
| 4 | Kate Avery | 19:56 | |
| 5 | Lily Partridge | 20:10 | |
| 6 | Liv Westphal | 20:21 | |
| 7 | Rhona Auckland | 20:25 | |
| 8 | Laura Weightman | 20:28 | |
| 9 | Corinna Harrer | 20:32 | |
| 10 | Gulshat Fazlitdinova | 20:37 | |
| 11 | Ekaterina Sokolenko | 20:45 | |
| 12 | Svetlana Riazantceva | 20:47 |
| Rank | Team | Points |
Purdue Avery Partridge Auckland Weightman Jess Andrews | 19 | |
Fazlitdinova Sokolenko Riazantceva Luiza Litvinova Anna Fedorova | 54 | |
Hassan Maureen Koster Irene Van Lieshout Marlin Van Hal | 70 |
Junior men
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| Ali Kaya | 17:49 | ||
| Isaac Kimeli | 17:51 | ||
| Mikhail Strelkov | 18:05 | ||
| 4 | Jonathan Davies | 18:06 | |
| 5 | Lorenzo Dini | 18:06 | |
| 6 | Alexandre Saddedine | 18:12 | |
| 7 | Yemaneberhan Crippa | 18:14 | |
| 8 | Steven Casteele | 18:16 | |
| 9 | Seán Tobin | 18:18 | |
| 10 | Viktor Bakharev | 18:20 | |
| 11 | Aleksandr Novikov | 18:22 | |
| 12 | Medhi Belhadj | 18:22 |
| Rank | Team | Points |
Saddedine Belhadj Alexis Miellet Maxime Hueber Moosbrugger Theodore Klein Hamza Habjaoui | 48 | |
Strelkov Bakharev Novikov Vildan Gadelshin Alexey Vikulov | 51 | |
L. Dini Yemaneberhan Crippa Samuele Dini Nekagenet Crippa Osama Zoghlami Italo Quazzola | 55 |
Junior women
| Rank | Athlete | Country | Time |
| Emelia Gorecka | 13:06 | ||
| Sofia Ennaoui | 13:16 | ||
| Maruša Mišmaš | 13:27 | ||
| 4 | Georgia Taylor-Brown | 13:31 | |
| 5 | Alina Reh | 13:34 | |
| 6 | Aleksandra Guliaeva | 13:38 | |
| 7 | Maria Larsson | 13:39 | |
| 8 | Bobby Clay | 13:40 | |
| 9 | Emine Hatun Tuna | 13:40 | |
| 10 | Maya Rehberg | 13:41 | |
| 11 | Jessica Gibbon | 13:41 | |
| 12 | Ebba Andersson | 13:44 |
| Rank | Team | Points |
Gorecka Taylor-Brown Clay Gibbon Lydia Turner Amy Griffiths | 24 | |
Larsson Andersson Isabelle Brauer Tova Euren-Magnussen Agnes Sjostrom | 75 | |
Reh Rehberg Caerina Granz Vera Coutellier Lea Meyer Tatjana Schulte | 95 |