Release courtesy of New Mexico Athletics.
CHIA, Italy — Alice Wright, a redshirt junior on the University of New Mexico cross country team, captured a third-place finish Sunday in the Women’s Under-23 race at the 2016 SPAR European Cross Country Championships. 
Wright’s performance highlighted a number of strong results from current and former Lobo athletes who competed Sunday in Chia, Italy, including top-20 runs from Josh Kerr and Jacob Simonsen.
Wright, running for Great Britain, finished third in the women’s U23 race, clocking a time of 19 minutes, 42 seconds over the six-kilometer course. Wright, hailing from Worcester, England, ran in the top three the entire race, registering strong splits during the middle of the race.
“It is a great finish of this season,” Wright said after her race. “It made my Christmas to be honest. I am so proud of our team result, it made my day. To represent my country is always a big honor so I had to spare some energy for this event.”
A three-time cross country All-American at UNM, Wright helped the British women to a win in the U23 race, as Great Britain scored 26 points — with Wright leading four scorers in the top 10 — to best Germany.
Kerr, running for Great Britain in the men’s U20 race, also posted a strong finish, placing 14th in 17:38. Although the track standout from Edinburgh, Scotland, redshirted this fall at UNM, he had a steady race in Italy, tallying strong splits over the 6K course.
He was the third scorer for the British squad that finished third in the team standings with 43 points, just one point behind runner-up Spain and 17 behind U20 champ France.
Additionally, Simonsen, a freshman from Aarhus, Denmark, notched a solid performance, tallying a 19th-place time of 23:38 in the men’s U23 race. Running just under eight kilometers, Simonsen was the top Danish finisher.
New Mexico also had four alumni running in the senior-division races.
Ross Millington, a five-time All-Mountain West honoree and 2016 Olympian for Great Britain, took 32nd in the men’s Senior 10K, running a time of 29:29.
In the women’s eight-kilometer Senior Race, Charlotte Arter (Carlisle, England) and Emily Hosker-Thornhill (Canterbury, England) placed 43rd (27:11) and 57th (27:43), respectively, for Great Britain, while Molly Renfer (Esher, England, via Switzerland) was 65th (28:14) for the Swiss.