Up-and-coming Olympic-distance triathlete Hugo Milner showed he had put his injury issues behind him when he won the English National Cross Country Championships for a second time at the weekend.
Milner moved from running to triathlon and used that background to devastating effect when he burst to prominence with an incredible lung-bursting run to glory at World Triathlon Cup Miyazaki in Japan in 2023.
He followed that up with victory over two-time World Triathlon champion Vincent Luis at the Europe Triathlon Cup in Quarteira and he maintained the progress in 2024 when, having won a first English XC title, he rounded off his triathlon campaign with a top-10 finish at the WTCS Grand Final in Torremolinos thanks to a sensational 28:47 run – some 30 seconds better than the next fastest which came from Olympic and World Champion Alex Yee.
Milner then helped pace Yee for the first 30km of his marathon debut in London last year and soon after was an impressive eighth at WTCS Alghero in May – but hasn’t raced since WTCS Hamburg in July.
A stress fracture was the issue but he had showed he was on the way back with an all-the-way win in the senior men’s race at the London Cross Challenge a fortnight ago.
Late kick lands the win
And that teed him up perfectly for the English National Cross Country Championships which this year was held in the North East at Hardwick Park in Sedgefield.
Sponsored by SportsShoes.com, the championships were being held in County Durham for the first time in 25 years and the biggest field of the day came in the senior men’s race where Milner was part of a 1,300-strong line up.
Conditions were soft underfoot but not too extreme for the three-lap 12.4km event and Milner, racing for Derby AC, paced it perfectly as he and James Kingston of Tonbridge AC led the way at the front.
No one else was able to stick with them as they shared pacing duties but then Milner made what proved to be the decisive move on the final lap to cross the line in triumph in an impressive 37:07.
Kingston followed him home 14 seconds later in 37:21, well ahead of Richard Slade of Chiltern Harriers AC who stopped the clock in 38:10 for third.
Long road back
Chatting afterwards to Athletics Weekly in the video embedded below, Milner said: “I just went out really hard and I thought if anyone comes with me then I’ll just keep the pace honest. I wanted to see if anyone would try and stick with me and credit to James – he really pushed the pace.
“After the first lap I thought it was quite windy so I let James do most of the work and then on the last lap I just had a bit left so I really pushed on. I had a bit of a stitch on that last kilometre so I was just holding on.
“But I felt really strong again and it felt good. It was interesting because I haven’t really done many races that are 12-and-a-half kilometres so I didn’t want to go off too hard and just suffer by myself so I was holding back a little on the second lap but I knew on the third lap I really had to pick where I wanted to push on and I just felt super-strong when I made that move.”
Looking back at what had been a frustrating spell, he added: “There were times in the last year where I couldn’t run, I couldn’t train and I had to just sit on the sofa. You put on a bit more weight and feel quite bad about yourself – and you always question when you get back, are you going to be the same?
“I started running again at the start of November and for the first two months until January I felt absolutely dreadful. I thought it was going to take a long time to get back and it has but now I feel like I’m starting to hit my peak which is good.”
Training Down Under next
And in terms of triathlon plans, Hugo will be looking to boost his current world ranking to open up opportunities at WTCS races, the highest tier of the sport.
World Cup and European Cup events are an avenue to do that and, as we said at the start, he’s a winner in both.
He told us: “I’m off to Australia on training camp now and then will race the Haikou World Cup on the way back. I will then race Quarteira European Cup at the end of March, then hopefully be back to WTCS in time for Samarkand. [late April].”
