By Iaaf.org,
A record number of 268 runners from 16 countries gathered on the start line of the 14th Grintovec race for the WMRA Grand Prix in a beautiful valley of Kamniska Bistrica 25km north from Ljubljana.
The weather forecast was promising sunny hot day with lots of humidity and light west wind above 2000m – not too bad conditions for the top runners who had plans to attack women’s and men’s course records from 2006.
The three Eritreans and Ahmet Arslan from Turkey started at a high pace even though nobody knew the how difficult 10km course was with almost 2000m elevation, and after the middle part of the course the leading runners started to pay the price of their rate of running in what was very hot weather.
In the end it was only Eritrean Azeryra Teklay who was able to keep up the high tempo and he finished well clear of Arslan, with local Nejc Kuhar, a specialist on such steep courses, taking bronze.
RESULT (MEN):
| 1. | Azerya TEKLAY | 78 | ERI | 1:17:27 |
| 2. | ARSLAN Ahmet | 86 | TUR | 1:21:54 |
| 3. | KUHAR Nejc | 85 | SLO | 1:22:03 |
| 4. | Abraham KIDANE | 74 | ERI | 1:22:56 |
| 5. | MIKLOŠA Matjaž | 75 | SLO | 1:28:00 |
| 6. | EDWARDS Orlando | 75 | GBR | 1:28:46 |
