Kenyan women heavy favorites
Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya expected to battle for men's team title in World Cross Country Champs on Saturday
It took 42 stagings of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships before one country swept the top three places in the senior women’s race. But that could very well happen again when the 45th edition of the meet is held at Friendship Park in Belgrade, Serbia, on Saturday.
Defending champion Kenya is expected to battle Ethiopia and Uganda for the men’s senior team championship in a race in which Ugandans Jacob Kiplimo and Joshua Cheptegei, Ethiopian Berihu Aregawi, and Kenyan Sabastian Sawe are regarded as the top contenders for the individual title.
However, it would be a big surprise in the women’s senior race if Kenya did not win its second consecutive team title — and third in the last four meets — as all of the highest-regarded individual entrants in the race hail from the East African nation of 51 million people.
Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands was expected to be a contender for the women’s title, but the winner of the 5,000 and 10,000 meters in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 announced last week that she was going to bypass the meet in order to focus on her training and give her body more time to recover from her fourth-place finish in the Tokyo Marathon on March 3.
The meet will start at 6 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, in the U.S., with the women’s U20 (under 20) race, followed by the men’s U20 contest at 6:35, the mixed 8-kilometer relay at 7:15, the women’s senior event at 7:45, and the men’s senior race at 8:30.
The cross country layout at Friendship Park is relatively flat and viewed as one that favors track performers over traditional cross country competitors who do best while running up and down hills.
However, temperatures that are expected to be around 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 Celsius) at the start of the meet and in the low 80s (27-28) by the final race are something that all of the competitors will have to contend with.
The women’s U20 race will be 6 kilometers in length, with the men’s U20 competitors running 8 kilometers, and both senior contests measuring 10 kilometers.
Beatrice Chebet of Kenya, the defending women’s champion, is coming off a superb year in 2023 that also included a bronze medal in the 5,000 in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last August, a personal best of 14:05.92 in September that made her the third-fastest runner in history, and a victory in the 5k event in the inaugural World Athletics Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia, in October.
Yet many regard her as an underdog to compatriot Agnes Jebet Ngetich.
Ngetich placed third in last year’s World cross country meet in Bathurst, Australia, and sixth in the 10,000 in the World Championships. But she has improved substantially since then as she lowered her 10k road best to 29:26 in Lille, France, in November before running a stunning 28:46 in the 10K Valencia Ibercaja in Spain in January that crushed the previous world record by 28 seconds.
She then ran 31:51 over a 10-kilometer cross country course to win the Kenyan team trials race for the World championships on March 2.
Emmaculate Anyango Achol, Lilian Kasait Rengeruk, and Chebet finished second, third, and fourth behind Ngetich in the Kenyan trials with times of 31:54, 31:57, and 32:00, respectively, and it would not be a shock if that quartet comprises the top four finishers in Belgrade, although the order could be different.
Anyango and Rengeruk ran 28:57 and 29:32, respectively, in the race in Valencia in which Ngetich crushed the world record, and Rengeruk is coming off a track season in which she ran 14:23.05 in the 5,000. She also finished second to Chebet in the 5k race in Riga and previously placed third in the 2017 World cross country championships in which Kenya swept the top six places while totaling a perfect score of 10 points in the meet in which a team’s score is based on the cumulative placings of its top four finishers from its six entered runners.
Ethiopia has won two of the last four women’s senior team titles, but there is no one on this year’s national squad that is as accomplished as the Big Four from Kenya.
Girmawit Gebrzihair and Tadelech Bekele are the two most heralded Ethiopians.
Gebrzihair won the Ethiopian team trials race and ran a superb 1:04:14 in the half marathon in 2022.
Bekele won the Amsterdam Marathon in 2017 and ‘18, and has a personal best of 2:21:40 in the marathon.
Annet Chemengich Chelangat of Uganda, Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdahl of Norway, and Weini Kelati of the U.S. are some of the other women who appear capable of top-10 finishes.
Chelangat placed 13th in last year’s meet while helping her country to a third-place finish behind Kenya and Ethiopia.
Grovdahl won her third consecutive European cross country title in December and won the New York City Half Marathon for the first time on March 17.
Kelati finished 21st in last year’s meet, but she has been on a roll this year, setting an American record of 1:06:25 in the half marathon in January and running a personal best of 30:33.82 in the 10,000 on March 16.
In contrast to the expected dominance of Kenya in the senior women’s race, the senior men’s contest will feature the top three finishers from last year in Kiplimo, Aregawi, and Cheptegai, as well as the seventh-place runner in Sawe.
Defending champion Kiplimo withdrew from the 5,000 and 10,000 in the World Athletics Championships last August with a hamstring injury, but he has won all four of his races since returning to competition. In addition, he is an experienced cross country competitor who broke open last year’s race in Bathurst, Australia, with a little more than a kilometer to go while on his way to finishing nine seconds ahead of Aregawi and 20 seconds up on 2019 champion Cheptegei.
Kiplimo was the runner-up to Cheptegei in the 2019 championships in Aarhus, Denmark, and he won the men’s U20 title in the Ugandan capital of Kampala in 2017.
The 2021 World cross country title meet was twice postponed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hence the four-year gap between the meets in Aarhus and Bathurst.
The meet in Aarhus is well remembered for being contested on a particularly tough course. It also marked the first time in history that a Ugandan — Cheptegei — won the senior men’s individual title, as well as the first time Uganda won the senior men’s team championship.
Cheptegei’s victory began a long run of success for the Ugandan as he won the first of three consecutive titles in the men’s 10,000 meters in the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, and set world records of 12:35.36 in the 5,000 and 26:11.00 in the 10,000 in 2020. His most recent World title in the 10,000 came in Budapest last August, but that performance was followed by a disappointing 37th-place finish in his marathon debut in Valencia, Spain, in December when his final time of 2:08:59 was far short of what he hoped to run.
He was a well-beaten second behind Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia in the 10K Villa de Laredo race in Spain on March 16, although his time of 26:53 indicated that he is in very good shape.
Aregawi is coming off a superb year in 2023 as he ran 12:40.45 in the 5,000 and 26:50.66 in the 10,000 on the track, as well as 26:33 for 10k on the roads, the second-fastest time in history.
Sawe, for his part, clocked 26:49 in a 10k road race last April before winning the half marathon in the World Road Running Championships in October and the Kenyan cross country trials on March 2.
Chimdessa Debele of Ethiopia, Nicholas Kipkorir of Kenya, and Thierry Ndikumwenayo of Spain are other potential top-10 finishers.
Debele placed 11th in last year’s race and Kipkorir finished 13th.
Ndikumwenayo finished ninth in the 2019 World cross country meet in Aarhus for his native Burundi and is coming off a track season in which he ran 12:55.47 for 5,000 meters.
When it comes to the mixed relay, Kenya and Ethiopia have combined to win all three gold medals in the event since it was first held in Kampala in 2017, and the Kenyans are the favorites heading into Saturday’s meet.
The Kenyan team could include three of the four members from last year’s squad that finished seven seconds in front of runner-up Ethiopia.
Those three runners are Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Reynold Kipkorir Cheruiyot, and Mirriam Cherop.
Wanyonyi was the silver medalist in the men’s 800 meters in the World Championships in Budapest last year and has run 1:42.80 in that event.
Cheruiyot finished eighth in the 1,500 in the World Championships and has a personal best of 3:30.30 in that event.
Cherop has a personal best of 4:07.14 in the 1,500.
The Ethiopian team is expected to include Hagos Gebrhiwet, who won the 5,000 in the African Games in Accra, Ghana, last Friday. He also ran 12:42.18 in that event on the track last July — to move to eighth on the all-time performer list — before winning the 5k race in the World Road Running Championships in October.
The rosters listing the two men and the two women who will comprise a country’s mixed relay team do not have to be finalized until 95 minutes before the race is scheduled to begin.
Forecasting the outcome of the individual and team battles in the men’s and women’s U20 races is usually more difficult than at the senior level because of the youth, and often inexperience, of the runners involved. But history indicates that competitors from Kenya and Ethiopia will dominate the proceedings on Saturday.
On the men’s side, a Kenyan (17 times) or Ethiopian (15) has won 32 of the last 35 individual U20 titles, and Kenya (25) or Ethiopia (10) have won the last 35 team championships.
Despite Kenya’s historical dominance in the team category, Ethiopia has won three of the last five championships, although it finished a point behind first-place Kenya in a 22-23 squeaker last year.
The women’s U20 race was added to the World Cross Country Championships program in 1989 and Kenya (15 times) and Ethiopia (13) have combined to win all 28 team titles awarded since its inception.
The two countries have been slightly less impressive when it comes to individual championships, but an Ethiopian (11 times) or Kenyan (10) has crossed the finish line in first place in each of the last 21 women’s U20 races.
When it comes to recent history, Ethiopia has won the last four team championships and an Ethiopian runner has won three of the past four individual titles, with two of those coming from Letesenbet Gidey — the 2022 World champion in the 10,000 meters — in 2015 and ’17.
When it comes to individuals to watch in the men’s U20 race on Saturday, Samuel Kibathi and Charles Rotich are expected to pace Kenya after they placed 1-2 in their nation’s team trials race.
Kibathi was the bronze medalist in the 10,000 meters in last year’s African U20 Championships and Rotich finished 12th in Bathurst last year.
Abel Bekele and Yismaw Dillu are Ethiopia’s leading entrants.
Bekele won the Ethiopian team trials race earlier this year and placed seventh in Bathurst.
Dillu was 15th in last year’s meet, but he later ran 27:08.85 in the 10,000 meters while placing third in Ethiopia’s team trials race for the World Championships in Budapest.
A U.S. team that surprised many with a third-place finish last year is expected to be led by Kevin Sanchez and Kole Mathison.
Sanchez won the men’s U20 title in the USA Track & Field Cross Country Championships in January. Mathison placed second behind Sanchez in that race and finished 25th in last year’s World championships.
In the women’s U20 race, four-time defending champion Ethiopia is expected to be led by Lemlem Nibret and Yenawa Nibret, who are not related.
Lemlem placed fifth in last year’s meet and Yenawa won Ethiopia’s team trials race.
Kenya is expected to be paced by Nancy Cherop and Diana Chepkemoi.
The 17-year-old Cherop was the bronze medalist in the 3,000 in the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia, and Chepkemoi placed ninth in Bathurst.
The U.S. finished a surprising third in last year’s women’s U20 race and three members of that team will be competing in Belgrade, including Ellie Shea, who finished 10th last year, two seconds behind Chepkemoi.
Inness Fitzgerald of Great Britain is another individual to be aware of in the women’s U20 race.
The 17-year-old had a 19-second margin of victory in the U20 race of the European Cross Country Championships in December, but Belgrade will be her first competitive test against some of the best U20 runners in the world.