Hannah Gapes delivered New Zealand\u2019s top finish at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida, placing 19th in the senior women\u2019s 10km in 34:01. Photo \/ Joe Hale, Athletics NZ<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first few laps were hard, but I just started feeling really good and people started coming back to me. That was encouraging and I was running with some of my NC State teammates for a bit. I was trying to focus on picking people off and running as hard as I could on the last lap,\u201d Gapes said of her run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI woke up and thought \u2018today\u2019s the day\u2019, I\u2019ve never represented New Zealand in the black singlet before so I was really excited to represent something bigger than myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rotorua-born Gapes competes for NC State in the NCAA, where she helped the Wolfpack to the 2025 national team title and earned individual All\u2011American honours (5th). <\/p>\n
Domestically, she won the New Zealand Cross Country Championships in August 2025.<\/p>\n
The championships were contested on a purpose\u2011built course at Apalachee Regional Park featuring Florida\u2011themed obstacles, a man\u2011made \u201crollercoaster\u201d hill, sections of sand, water and mud, plus the much\u2011talked\u2011about alligator logs, all arranged over multiple loops to repeatedly sap momentum and reward strength and savvy pacing.<\/p>\n
The conditions compounded the challenge, with temperatures in the low 20s and humidity above 90% recorded during the races, and numerous athletes across the programme unable to finish as the hot Florida weather took its toll.<\/p>\n
On the day, Sophie Hicks and Katrina Andrew completed the Kiwi trio in the senior women\u2019s race, finishing 58th (36:50) and 62nd (37:19) respectively. <\/p>\n
In the senior men\u2019s 10km, Toby Gualter was New Zealand\u2019s first finisher in 47th (30:54), with MacCallum Rowe 58th (31:36), William Little 73rd (32:28) and Taonga Mbambo 96th (33:53); Oliver Chignell and Connor Melton unfortunately recorded DNFs on the day.<\/p>\n
The senior mixed 4x2km relay raced admirably, finishing in 14th with a total time of 24:48. Christian De Vaal opened with a 5:32 leg, followed by Tillie Hollyer\u2019s 6:45, David Lee\u2019s 5:40, and Boh Ritchie closing in 6:51.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s U20 squads also gained valuable championship experience in the oppressive conditions. Scarlett Robb (48th) led the U20 women, followed by Brynne Gordon (51st), Denika Clooney (55th), Eleanor Pugh (60th) and Poppy Healy (62nd). In the U20 men\u2019s race, Caleb Wagener (39th) was the top Kiwi, with George Wyllie (49th), Corban Holmes (56th), Redd Scampion (61st) and Bede Colbourne (65th) rounding out the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hannah Gapes delivered New Zealand\u2019s top finish at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida, placing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[123700,27951,2327,135807,1975,16671,5759,2841,40181,17353,34088,18984,2147,75412,22137,42,43,33235,1327,6641,5843,135806,3010,40,38,41,39,2834,377,2963],"class_list":["post-227721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-10km","tag-19th","tag-2327","tag-135807","tag-at","tag-athletics","tag-championships","tag-country","tag-cracks","tag-cross","tag-delivered","tag-finish","tag-florida","tag-gapes","tag-hannah","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-placing","tag-rotorua","tag-runner","tag-senior","tag-tallahassee","tag-top","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-womens","tag-world","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}