Athletics: Montpellier's Louisa Esmouni crowned in the semi-finals of the French cross-country championship

Esmouni s'est imposée à Carcassonne Jean-François Garrigues – Jean-François Garrigues

Retour sur les meilleurs résultats des athlètes de Montpellier lors de la dernière étape à Carcassonne avant les championnats de France en mars dans le Tarn.

The semi-finals of the French cross-country championship, the equivalent of the Occitanie championships, took place last Sunday in Carcassonne in Aude. The competition crowned Montpellier's Louisa Esmouni on the cross court. "I am very happy to have won for my second senior experience, rejoiced the student at Sciences Po Paris who will celebrate her 20th birthday in May. I went by feeling, I felt that I was good and I managed to maintain my lead."

Team victory in the cross court

Beyond striking a big blow by winning one of the main races of the day, the athlete led the Montpellier Athlétic Méditerranée Métropole towards team victory. Her teammates also participated in this collective success with Lotta Van Leeuwen (7th), Clémentine Challot (11th) and Mélanie Garrigues (15th).

Champions of Occitanie, Louisa Esmouni and her partners will have legitimate ambitions during the next French championship, in Tarn, from March 8 to 10. “It’s always a great joy to participate in championships, it’s stimulating,” she notes. Signing a top 10 in seniors and a podium in Espoirs would be really great."

Mourabit and Anou on the podium

In the short distance, the Montpellier runners did not imitate their female counterparts since Abdelhamid Zerrifi ranked 11th, Marcus Pommier 13th and Louis Ginane 16th. You had to turn to the cadet race to see the MA2M at the party.

The promising Montpellier native from Vaucluse, Lamia Mourabit took a superb second place at the end of a suspenseful race since she was beaten by only two seconds by the winner and crossed the finish line at the same time as the third.

Finally, in Elite men, the Algerian runner from Montpellier Abderrahmane Anou climbed to the third step of the podium. His MA2M teammate Sven Durand, not quite recovered from the flu, had to settle for 18th position. In Elite women, the triathletes from ASPH Montpellier showed themselves like the 11th place of Fiona Cornet and the 26th of Stéphanie Manel.