Rising triathlon star Hugo Milner has his sights set on Norwegian running legend Jakob Ingebrigtsen at the European Cross Country Championship in Antalya on December 8.
Milner, who rounded off his triathlon campaign with a superb 10th place at the WTCS Grand Final in Torremolinos, was fourth in the Euros in Brussels 12 months ago after helping drive the pace at the front for much of the race.
And he booked his spot on the British team for this year’s Euros with second place in epic, muddy conditions at the Liverpool Cross Challenge last weekend.
Among his rivals in Turkey will be two-time Olympic champion Ingebrigtsen – but rather than being daunted by that, Milner is instead relishing the challenge.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s career so far
Ingebrigtsen’s CV is astonishing – as well as his Olympic titles from Tokyo (1,500m) and Paris (5,000m) he’s also a multiple world and European champion.
The 24-year-old, two years younger than Milner, holds a host of world records too – and at 16 he became the youngest person ever to break the four-minute barrier for the mile.
He also won the U20 European Cross Country title every year from 2016 to 2019 and then took the senior crowns in 2021 and 2022.
But Milner has been setting some spectacularly fast 10km running times at the end of Olympic-distance triathlons recently. At the WTCS Grand Final in Torremolinos last month – and after a 1.5km swim and 40km bike ride – he clocked a quickest-of-the-day 28:47 to move into the top 10.
‘Why not me?’
And as Milner referenced when chatting to Athletics Weekly in the video which is embedded below, Ingebrigtsen is not unbeatable: “I’ve seen Jake Wightman, Josh Kerr, and Cole Hocker beat him, so why not me?
“I think a few years ago I kind of looked up to him a lot, but you’re never going to beat anyone if you look up to him like that. So I just see him as a rival competitor and yeah, I think it’s going to be really tough and it’s going to be a good race, but you’ve got to believe that you can beat the best.
“It’d be nice to try and medal at Europeans this year. Obviously finishing fourth last year I was a bit gutted, but Ingebrigtsen’s going to be up there and there’s going to be a lot of other strong runners, so we’ll see what happens.
“But I’m feeling really fit right now, so I’m just going to go and do my best and different courses suit different people.”
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