The Croatian women’s team won the title of world champions in the team competition in the 100-kilometre race in Ames, Spain. This is one of the greatest achievements in the history of Croatian ultrarunning, and the Croatian women’s team won the world gold in the 100-kilometre team race for the first time.
Croatia took first place in the women’s team competition with a total time of 22:12:26. Second place went to Spain with 22:21:06. Nikolina Šustić Stanković, Nataša Šustić and Mirjana Šimek Bilić, who all finished among the top ten women in the world, stood out in particular. Nikolina Šustić Stanković took fifth place with a time of 7:21:57, Nataša Šust seventh with 7:22:43, and Mirjana Šimek Bili finished in 10th place with 7:27:46.
Nikolina Šustić Stanković was already world champion in 100 kilometres in 2018, while Mirjana Šimek Bili became Croatian record holder in the 100-kilometre and 6-hour race. This is the 33rd edition of the 100-kilometre world championship in Ames in Galicia, which was organised by the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU), the Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA) and the local organising committee. 44 countries were represented at the championship.
The Croatian men’s team took 16th place in the team standings. The captain of the Croatian team, Zdravko Jadri, took 58th place in the overall standings of the world championship, and also competed in the 100-kilometre masters world championship, which was held as part of the same competition, where he won the silver medal in the M50 category.
The race was successfully completed by Stipica Bagari, Hrvoje Bašić, Krunoslav Bošnjak, Ivan Gale, Marinko Čubr, Vedran Kelemen, Marina Jurani, Veronika Juri and Ines Jo. The Croatian ultramarathon team has been in existence for 16 years under the leadership of coach Jovan.
