Azerbaijan joins European Cross Country Championships

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani paralympian Mehman Ramazanzade has taken part in the European Cross Country Championships.

At the European Cup in Vuokatti (Finland), he won the first license points for the 2022 Winter Paralympics scheduled for March 4-13, 2022. 

Notably, Mehman Ramazanzade is a  twice winner of the Baku Marathon among Paralympic athletes in paracycling and the country's first representative at the World Paracycling Championships (2019) in the Netherlands.

Next, Mehman Ramazanzade will represent the country at the  2022 World Championships in Norway.

Recall that the first medal in the history of the country's Paralympic movement at the international competition in winter sports was won by skier Gulnar Rahimova. She became the winner of the giant slalom competition at the Asian Alpine Skiing Championships in Iran in February 2019.

The European Cross Country Championships is an annual international cross country running competition.

Organised by the European Athletic Association, it is the area championships for the region and is held in December each year.

The championships was inaugurated in 1994 in Alnwick and the venue for the championships changes each year.

Unlike the World Championships for the sport, the European Cross Country Championships consists of six races in age categories, with separate senior, under-23, and junior races for both men and women. There are individual and national team medals awarded in each race. In the team competition, the top three from a team of up to six are scored.

The first edition of the competition featured only senior races and 180 athletes took part. Men's and women's junior (under-20) races were introduced at the third edition in 1996 and under-23 races were added to the programme in 2006.