WHILE we are not yet a quarter way through the year, we have our second World athletics championship of 2024.
Hot on the heels of the enthralling indoors in Glasgow at the start of the month, our attention is now directed toward tomorrow’s 45th World Cross Country Championship in Belgrade.
Both champions from last year are back to defend their titles with Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet reportedly intending to put up a fierce defence of her crown.
After her victory in Bathurst in Australia, the 23-year-old added another impressive entry on her CV with a World 5000m bronze in Budapest before winning the 5km title at the inaugural World Athletics Road Running Championships in Riga.
She followed that with a world record, clocking 14:13 to improve the women’s world 5km record in Barcelona on the last day of the year.
Defending senior men’s champion and World Half Marathon record holder Jacob Kiplimo is also set for a defence of his title.
Now 23, the Ugandan won the U20 title at the World Cross Country Championships in Kampala seven years ago before claiming the World Half Marathon title in 2020. One year later, he set a world record for that distance, clocking 57:31 in Lisbon – a mark that still stands today.
A World and Olympic bronze medallist over 10,000m, Kiplimo won the 5000m and 10,000m double at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He hopes another gold medal in Belgrade will propel him forward in this Olympic year with Paris only months away.
Athletics Ireland has named a team of eight for the event, led by national senior women’s champion Fiona Everard.
It includes two northern athletes, East Down’s Anna Gardiner – unbeaten in her age group domestically – in the U20 women’s race, and Bristol-based Séamus Robinson, who does his running on this side of the Irish Sea in the colours of City of Derry Spartans and has been selected for the U20 men’s race.
Ireland has not won an individual medal at the World Cross Country since 1998 when Sonia O’Sullivan did the double, taking gold in both the short, discontinued after 2006, and long course races.
The last Irish team success was in 2002 when O’Sullivan (seventh), Ann Keenan-Buckley (10th), Rosemary Ryan (18th) and Maria McCambridge (50th) combined to claim short course bronze medals on home ground at Leopardstown Racecourse.
Given the running pedigree of the east African nations, it would be wildly optimistic to hope that the 22-year gap would be bridged tomorrow in Freedom Park.
At last year’s championships in Bathurst, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda claimed 24 of the 27 medals on offer, leaving only scraps in the form of three bronze placings for the USA (2) and host nation Australia (1).
Across the Atlantic, Ireland’s great Olympic medal hope Rhasidat Adeleke will be making her seasonal debut at the 96th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays which continue today and tomorrow.
Adeleke will attack the meet record in the 4x200m as well as possibly an individual event.
A strong final day, aided by Ulster athletes, saw Team Ireland return from the European Masters Indoor Athletics Championships in Torun, Poland with a haul of 62 medals, comprising 23 gold, 18 silver, and 21 bronze.
That secured Ireland a brilliant seventh position in the overall medal standings out of the 38 countries that featured on the medal table.
Particularly fruitful for the Irish on the final day were the 1500m finals in which Derry resident Kieran Kelly (M35), Finn Valley’s Catriona Devine (F50) and North Belfast Harrier Conor Curran (M45) all claimed silver medals in their respective age groups.
Another North Belfast Harrier, David Clarke, who was representing Great Britain, finished third in the M60 race to add a bronze to his silver medals in both the 800m and 3000m earlier in the week.
