Strong squad Turks aiming to approve top position

Last year's European Cross Country Championships leader Turkey will send 34-strong team to Slovakian town Samorin. The team has finalized after Turkish XC League stage in Istanbul. Turning one of the major cross country threats in the continent, Turkey will be aiming to topping at medal standings, once again. The Crescent-and-Star team will be going to take another major victory at Euro Cross, where they took over top position from Great Britain first time since 2002. 34 Turkish athletes will compete in Samorin for every disciplines, including the championships' new event, mixed relay which is formed by two men and two women. Turkish team is featuring five former individual Euro XC Championships winners: undisputed long distance star Yasemin Can and Aras Kaya, both will be challenge there as defenders, additionally former senior men's champions Ali Kaya (2015) and Polat Kemboi Arıkan (2014) are going to contest as highly assertive. Meanwhile, 2014 European Cross junior champion Emine Hatun Tuna also taking a berth on starting line to Under-23 race. Turkey recently proved their form in Balkan XC Championhips, where they grabbed 19 medals in total. Amongst the gold medallists at Balkan Champs, hugely talented junior champions Pınar Demirtaş and Ramazan Barbaros can be potential eye-catching performers on the day. Aside from that indicated names, some other distinguish members will be representing in Samorin, such as natural-born XC runner and several Euro medalist Esma Aydemir, 2016 European steeplechase bronze medalist Özlem Kaya, European XC silver medalist Meryem Akdağ and 2016 Balkan champion Ramazan Özdemir. Here is full squad of Turkey to compete Samorin 2017 SPAR European XC Championships in 10th of December. Seniors Men: Ali Kaya, Aras Kaya, Polat Kemboi Arıkan, Kaan Kigen Özbilen, Alper Demir Seniors Women: Özlem Kaya, Yasemin Can, Meryem Akdağ, Sevilay Eytemiş, Esma Aydemir U23 Men: Saffet Elkatmış, Süleyman Bekmezci, Onur Aras, Ersin Tekal, Ferhat Bozkurt U23 Women: Emine Hatun Tuna, Fatma Demir, Yayla Kılıç, Fatma Demir, Tubay Erdal Junior Men: Ramazan Barbaros, Sezgin Ataç, Ömer Amaçtan, Ramazan Baştuğ, Abdurrahman Gediklioğlu Junior Women: Latife Güneş, Pınar Demirtaş, Emine Akbingöl, Gülnaz Uskun, Semra Karaslan