Borderer Scout Adkin does Italian job to win World Mountain-Running Association World Cup

Scout Adkin celebrating winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)Scout Adkin celebrating winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)
Scout Adkin celebrating winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)
Borderer Scout Adkin won this year’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup by a single point in Italy on Sunday.

That title went to the wire, being decided by the two final races in a series of 12 staged in the USA, Austria, Portugal, France, Switzerland and Slovenia as well as Italy.

That double-header season finale, based at Chiavenna in Lombardy, consisted of Saturday’s 3.2km Lagunc KM Verticale and Sunday’s 23km Val Bregaglia Trail from Promontogno in Switzerland into Italy.

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Moorfoot Runners member Adkin, second in the world cup standings at that stage, won the first of those two concluding races in 37:57 and finished third in the latter in 1:48:58, behind runner-up Philaries Jeruto Kisang and fellow Kenyan Joyce Muthoni Njeru, winner of the three prior world cups, clocking 1:48:51 and 1:47:45 respectively.

Scout Adkin on her way to winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy with a third-placed Val Bregaglia Trail finish on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)Scout Adkin on her way to winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy with a third-placed Val Bregaglia Trail finish on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)
Scout Adkin on her way to winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy with a third-placed Val Bregaglia Trail finish on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)

Adkin, of Peebles, was ten points behind Muthoni Njeru going into the weekend but ended up one ahead of her, on 339, after their top-eight results were counted.

Jeruto Kisang finished third on 313 points, Finland’s Susanna Saapunki fourth on 219 points and Gloria Chebet, the third of three Kenyans to make the top five, fifth on 155.

This year’s world cup win was Adkin’s first and she’s chuffed to bits to have pulled it off, albeit only by a whisker, after finishing as runner-up to Muthoni Njeru in 2023.

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“I’m so happy to win this,” the 31-year-old, coached by Angela Mudge, told Scottish Athletics afterwards.

Scout Adkin celebrating winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)Scout Adkin celebrating winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)
Scout Adkin celebrating winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)

“It has been a long season with many ups and downs, both literally in the races, and figuratively.

“Wining a world cup title makes all the travel, the training and tough racing worthwhile, and I want to thank everyone who has helped me along the way.

“Going into the last two races, the points for the podium were so tight that anything could have happened. I knew I needed two really good performances to have any chance.

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“It has been a tough year with a lot of racing and it certainly went down to the wire, to the last race, with only one point between myself and Joyce, who was second in the series.

Scout Adkin on her way to winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy with a third-placed Val Bregaglia Trail finish on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)Scout Adkin on her way to winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy with a third-placed Val Bregaglia Trail finish on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)
Scout Adkin on her way to winning 2024’s World Mountain-Running Association World Cup in Italy with a third-placed Val Bregaglia Trail finish on Sunday (Photo: Marco Gulberti/World Mountain-Running Association)

“It is quite a long season, with a lot of variety of races, from a very short 3km and 1,000m of climb to 32km and just over 2,000 metres of climb, so it has certainly been testing of speed and endurance and power as well, never mind facing quite a lot of heat over the summer.

“I am really, really happy. I had to do a lot of travel this year between flying to Europe and working in between, and I am just so glad it has paid off.”

The next-highest-ranked Briton after Adkin, a physiotherapist by trade working south of the border in Cumbria these days, was Shropshire’s Sara Willhoit, sixth in the standings on 111.

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The Borderer’s prior finishes were fourth in 1:24:05 in July’s 13.3km Gross Glockner Mountain Run in Austria, won by Germany’s Nina Engelhard in 1:22:09, with Muthoni Njeru fifth in 1:25:09; first in the Montemuro Vertical Run in Portugal over 10.4km in 1:00:52 later that same month; first in the 19.5km Montee du Nid d’Aigle in France in 2:08:09, also in July; second in Switzerland’s 31km Sierre Zinal in August in 3:02:21, won by Kenya’s Joyline Chepngeno in 2:54:06; fourth in that month’s 4.3km Vertical Nasego in Italy in 42:33, won by Austria’s Andrea Mayr in 40:51; and second to Muthoni Njeru’s winning time of 49:43 in Slovakia’s 10km Smarna Gora Race at the start of this month in 50:13.

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