photo: Cat Taylor during Thursday's Relays. Cat was the highest placed British athlete today; she was 18th.

The European Championships concluded with the toughest races, the long or classic distance races on Sunday 13th May.

The women had 11.3km with 680m climb. The men had 14.9km with 910m climb.

Swiss Summary of Races

World of O Race Analysis

Women

Tove Alexander won by 5 minutes - taking 81:08.

1. Tove Alexandersson
2. Natalia Gemperle
3. Julia Gross
4. Sabine Hauswirth
5. Maja Alm
6. Maija Sianoja

British Results: 18. Cat Taylor, 31. Jessica Tullie, 43. Hollie Orr.

Men

Olav Lundanes won by 52 seconds - taking 94:42. There was an absolutely fantastic run by Gernot Kerschbaumer of Austria to take the bronze. Gernot first ran in a World Champs in 2004, and this is his best ever result. Gernot Kerschbaumer Facebook.

The commentary noted that Olav Lundanes had won the long race at JWOC in 2005 when it was also in Ticino.

1. Olav Lundanes
2. Matthias Kyburz
3. Gernot Kerschbaumer
4. Frederic Tranchand
5. Daniel Hubmann
6. Martin Hubmann

British Results: 28. Hector Haines, 29. Alan Cherry, 37.Alasdair McLeod.

End of Championships

Championships Facebook Page

The home team did, as anticipated, win a lot of medals: eight Swiss athletes won 11 medals of the 27 for the championships.

For nine races, ten golds were awarded (there were two in the men's sprint as there was a tie), and all ten went to the "big 4" countries: five to Switzerland, two each to Sweden and Norway, and one to Finland.

Of the 27 medals: 11 went to SUI, 5 to SWE, 4 to NOR, 2 to RUS, and 1 each to FIN, AUT, DEN, FRA and GBR.