ARE we watching the slow demise of the global cross country championships?
You could be forgiven for thinking that after last weekend’s 45th edition of the World Athletics Cross Country in Serbia.
The event failed to attract spectators to watch the competition held on a relatively flat parkland circuit, broken up only by an artificial mudhole and straw bales lined up in the path of the runners.
What almost no-one could have predicted were the unseasonal temperatures which saw the thermometer rise to the high 20s.
This caused runners to collapse across the finish line dripping with sweat and caked in mud.
The medical tent was kept busy all morning and early afternoon.
This was all despite World Athletics president Lord Sebastian Coe calling for the Serbian people to come out and watch. “It’s not often a world championships comes to your city,” he said at the press conference prior to the event.
That was not necessarily correct as Belgrade also hosted the 2022 World Indoors, the 2017 European Indoors and the 2013 European Cross Country Champs. Certainly the response was poor with the attendance sparse and nothing like 2019 event in Aarhus.
In fairness, the Serbian capital had only taken on the championships last November when the original host country Croatia was found by World Athletics to be less than prepared to hold the event in February which was the intended date. “Preparations were not sufficiently advanced”, was the diplomatic language used by World Athletics at the time.
Up until Belgrade, only five countries had competed at every meeting since the then IAAF had taken over the championships in 1973. The United States, Britain, Spain, France, and Italy were all part of an exclusive club but that number fell to four due to Italy not sending any representatives to the Serbian capital.
Athletes from Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda claimed 26 of the 27 medals on offer, the figure in Australia last year was 24. That may partly explain why Finland, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland, among others, were absent.
The solitary Dutch entrant, Sifan Hassan, withdrew and Norway’s only competitor was three-time European champion Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal. And this is despite the championships being held in Europe.
The east African domination did not deter Athletics Ireland sending eight athletes to the event with the best placing being 37th by East Down AC’s Anna Gardiner who had a great run on what was her 18th birthday.
Coe also said at the press conference: “cross country, properly used in the modern training regimen, is an ageless and timeless concept” but that may now be an archaic approach to the preparation of middle-distance athletes. Evidence of this may be the fact that only six men from last year’s World Championships in Budapest took part in Belgrade.
Grovdal, who was first non-African finisher (14th place) in the senior women’s race, feels that athletes prefer to focus on training camps at this time of year and suggested that was the reason why more of her fellow Norwegian athletes, including Jakob Ingebrigtsen who is in Flagstaff, Arizona, were not willing to interrupt their preparations for the imminent track season.
Athletics Ireland has also contributed to the shift of emphasis from cross country by moving the senior inter-club championships to November meaning that there is no target after Christmas for the top domestic harriers.
For this, and other reasons, the focus for our leading runners such as Ciara Mageean, Andrew Coscoran and Nick Griggs is on indoor competitions in the months from January to March, traditionally the culminating months of the cross country season.
The next World Cross is in Tallahassee, Florida, on January 10, 2026. Some may complain about the event being held so soon after Christmas but it may appeal to more runners as it will mean the cross-country season is wrapped up before the more lucrative indoor season kicks off.
Hopes that cross country could be re-introduced to the 2028 Olympics certainly were not kindled by the dull affair in Serbia.
WEEKEND FIXTURES
Friday/Saturday
12:30pm/9:15am Irish Universities’ Track & Field Champs – Mary Peters Track
Saturday
8am Florida Endurance Challenge – Florida Manor, Killinchy – George McGonigal (07905556173)
Saturday/Sunday
10am (both days) National Juvenile Indoor Champs – Athlone
Sunday
9:30am 34th SPAR Omagh Half Marathon & 5K – Marty McLaughlin (07786164431)
