Mariana Machado was a member of the national team who achieved the best result at the European Cross Country Championships in Turin when she finished ninth in the under-23 race.
Mariana Machado, the national champion who was looking for her third medal in Europe after bronze in 2021 and 2019, finished the distance in a time of 20.56 minutes, 1.01 minutes behind the winner, Italy’s Nadia Battoccletti.
In the same competition, Lia Lemos (21.31 minutes) of Braga and Ines Borba (23.05) of Sporting CP finished 23rd and 55th respectively.
Among men, Miguel Moreira (Benfica) was the best Portuguese, finishing 16th with a time of 24.33 minutes in a race won by Britain’s Charles Hicks (23.40).
Sporting’s Ruben Amaral (25.11) finished 44th, while Benfica’s Etson Barros (25.24) and Pedro Amaro (25.37) finished 47th and 54th.
Ana Marinho (São Salvador do Campo), 38th with a time of 14.08 minutes among women, and Rodrigo Lima (Sporting), 51st with a time of 18.51, became the best Portuguese in the under-20 category .
The National Mixed Relay, which included Salome Afonso, Patricia Silva, Nuno Pereira (all from Sporting) and Isaac Nader (Benfica), finished 10th, while Ireland finished ninth with the same time (17.56).
This was the first time that Portugal did not participate at the senior level, where in 28 editions they had five individual victories and ten collective victories.
