Abdulqani Sharif has been chosen to represent GB Students at the World University Cross Country Championships in Morocco on March 7th.
The event is a mainstay in University sporting competition worldwide and this year will see a Liverpool Harrier compete.
Sharif currently studies at St Mary’s University in Twickenham and trains under Mick Woods, but spent the large majority of his time in the sport training under Adrian Webb in Wavertree upon taking up the sport in 2012.
He has competed three times already this year all in the BUCS Championships, two coming in Sheffield.
International Selection.
Congratulations to Abdulqani Sharif who has been selected for GB Students for the World University Cross Country Championships which will take place in Marrakech, Morocco on 7 March 2020.— Liverpool Harriers (@LivHarriersAC) February 14, 2020
Just twelve athletes were chosen to participate for Team GB and those chosen had to have beaten the minimum standards required which are set out below.
- 5k Men: 14:40
- 5k Women: 16:40
- 10k Men: 30:30
- 10k Women: 34:30
- 10 Miles Men: 50:15
- 10 Miles Women: 56:50
- Half Marathon Men: 1:07:00
- Half Marathon Women: 1:16:00
- Marathon Men: 2:22:00
- Marathon Women: 2:39:00
The World University Cross Country Championships has seen a multitude of global long distance runners pass through.
In particular, current 10,000m world champion Joshua Cheptegei is a former winner of the competition, winning in 2014 at the age of 17.
The Ugandan athlete came up through cross country and still competes, winning last year’s World XC Championships in Denmark.
Just this month, he also broke the 5,000m World Road Race record with a time of 12:51, beating the former time by 31 seconds.
The prestige of the competition is clear to see and a big accomplishment for anybody chosen.
The full list of GB representatives can be seen below:
Charlotte Dannatt (University of Oxford), Dani Chattenton (Imperial College London and The Institute of Cancer Research), Amelia Quirk (University of Birmingham), Jennifer Nesbitt (Cardiff Met), Eloise Walker (Glasgow University), Isobel Fry (St. Marys University), James Gormley (University of Birmingham), James Crowe (Lamar University), Joe Wilkinson (Loughborough University), Daniel Jarvis (St. Marys University), Abdulqani Sharif (St. Marys University) and Mark Pearce (Keele University).
Picture by Katherine Windish under Creative Media Commons
