Wallenius to Compete at European Championship

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LITTLE ROCK – After a stellar freshman cross country campaign where she won the Sun Belt Conference championship, Noora Wallenius will be taking on bigger challenges this weekend in a continent-wide race.
 
Wallenius will be competing for her native Finland at the 2015 European Cross Country Championship in Hyères, France, on Sunday morning, running against the best under-20 competition Europe has to offer.
 
One of just two Finnish participants in the Under-20 female race, Wallenius will be racing against opponents from 26 other countries. A total of 85 people are scheduled to run in her race.
 
Wallenius' race is set to begin at 10:35 a.m. local time, or 3:35 a.m. in Arkansas. Her course will be just over 4.1 kilometers, or just over 2.5 miles. That distance is far shorter than any competitive race Wallenius ran as a Trojan in her freshman year.
 
The European Cross Country Championships are held every year and include races for men and women. There are three age groups per gender: Senior Group (23 years old and over), an Under-23 race and an Under-20 race.

During her first year in Little Rock, Wallenius won the Sun Belt individual championship, was named All-Sun Belt First Team, the Sun Belt's Cross Country Outstanding Performer and its freshman of the year. She also broke the school record for the cross country 5K with a time of 17:06.0 at the Little Rock Invitational, and her time of 20:59.1 at the NCAA South Central Regional is now the second-best time in school history in the 6K distance.