Kiplimo, Chebet double up in World Cross Country Champs
Ugandan and Kenyan win second consecutive titles in meet in Belgrade, Serbia
Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda and Beatrice Chebet of Kenya used a similar tactic at different points in their respective races while posting repeat titles in the 45th edition of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, on Saturday.
Running under sunny skies with temperatures around 82 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius), Kiplimo surged away from his closest pursuers with a little less than three minutes left in the men’s 10,025-meter race at Friendship Park while on his way to a 28-minute 9-second clocking that left him three seconds ahead of silver medalist Berihu Aregawi of Ethiopia and five up on bronze medalist Benson Kiplangat of team champion Kenya.
In the women’s race, Chebet calmly broke away from teammate Lilian Kasait Rengeruk with a little less than 200 meters remaining in the contest before crossing the finish line in 31:05, followed by Rengeruk in 31:08.
Team champion Kenya also had the third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishers in Margaret Chelimo Kipkemoi (31:09), Emmaculate Anyango Achol (31:24) and Agnes Chebet Ngetich (31:27).
The 23-year-old Kiplimo might have upset the form charts in last year’s meet in Bathurst, Australia, when he won the men’s race after breaking away from Aregawi and defending champion — and fellow Ugandan — Joshua Chetegei with about a kilometer left in the contest. But it did not come as a surprise on Saturday when he took the lead for good at roughly the same point in the race.
“It actually feels more exciting to successfully defend my title than to win the first one,” Kiplimo was quoted as saying in a World Athletics post. “But it was also tougher. I came here expecting I could win again, but the field was really strong. The pace was fast, the guys kept pushing it and there was still a big group out in front. It wasn't until the final three kilometres that I felt I needed to move to the front.”
The race was comprised of five loops of 1,887 meters, with the competitors running 270 meters before the start of the first lap and 320 meters after the conclusion of the fifth.
After a very pedestrian first lap-plus, Chimdessa Debele of Ethiopia led the field through the end of the second lap in 11:31 after running the second loop in 5:34.
Gideon Kipkertich Rono of Kenya had a five-second lead over a large chase pack when he completed three laps in 16:55, but the lead group caught up to him four minutes later.
Cheptegei and Kiplimo were running 1-2 when a 10-runner lead pack came through four laps in 22:15. The pace began to pick up after that and the front group had been reduced to Kiplomo, Cheptegei, Aregawi, and Kenyans Kiplangat and Nicholas Kipkorir 24 and a half minutes into the race.
One sensed Kiplimo was preparing to make a move 30 seconds later when he hurdled some hay bales, rather that wind his way through them as the other leaders did.
He led the front five runners over a bridge shortly after that and by the 26-minute mark, he was leading Aregawi and Kiplangat as Kipkorir and Cheptegei had fallen back.
Kiplimo took a look over his shoulder 30 seconds later to check on his two closest pursuers, but he was in control for the remainder of the race.
Behind the front three finishers, Kipkorir placed fourth in 28:16, followed by Samwel Chebolei Masai of Kenya in 28:18, Cheptegei in 28:24, and Sebastian Sawe of Kenya in 28:31.
With four runners among the top seven finishers, Kenya totaled 19 points to win its second consecutive title — and 26th overall — in the meet in which a team’s total is based on the cumulative places of its top four finishers.
Uganda, which won its first title in 2019, placed second with 31 points, followed by Ethiopia with 40, Spain with 99, and Australia with 106.
Kiplimo’s victory made him the first man to win consecutive World cross country titles since Geoffrey Kamworor of Kenya did it in 2015 and ‘17. It was also his fifth win in a row since he returned to competition last October after a hamstring injury forced him to withdraw from the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August.
Included in that streak was a 15-kilometer road race in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in November when he tied the world record of 41:05 set by Cheptegei in 2018.
Kiplimo’s older countryman had a sensational run since then, winning the World cross country title and the first of three consecutive World 10,000-meter championships on the track in 2019, setting world records of 12:35.36 in the 5,000 and 26:11.00 in the 10,000 in 2020, and placing first in the 5,000 and second in the 10,000 in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.
“I was hungry for medals after missing Budapest last year,” Kiplimo said. “I was in good shape, but then the injury happened and I had to get treatment, but I am back now. My goal this year is to do what Joshua Cheptegei did and win an Olympic gold. My main focus is the 10,000, but I'm not sure yet if I want to double.”
While Kiplimo entered Saturday’s meet as the favorite in the men’s race, plenty of people viewed Chebet as an underdog in the women’s contest.
Afterall, she had finished fourth in the Kenyan trials race on March 2 that was used to select the six-runner women’s team for the World Championships. And the first- and second-place finishers in that race, Ngetich and Anyango, had stunned the distance running world in January when they ran 28:46 and 28:57, respectively, in a 10k road race in Valencia, Spain, to obliterate the previous world record of 29:14 that had been set by Yalemzerf Yehualaw of Ethiopia in 2022.
Although the 24-year-old Chebet did not say anything publicly, one has to wonder if she felt slighted as she was coming off a breakthrough year in 2023. A year that included her World cross country title in February, a bronze medal in the 5,000 in the World Championships in Budapest in August, a personal best of 14:05.92 in that event in September that made her the third-fastest runner in history, a victory in the 5k in the inaugural World Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia, in October, and a world record of 14:13 for a 5k road race in Barcelona on the final day of the year.
Not surprisingly, the Kenyan contingent dominated the women’s race from the start.
Chebet, Anyango, Ngetich, Rengeruk and Kipkemoi occupied the top five places 12 and a half minutes into the race. Sarah Chelangat of Uganda and Weini Kelati of the U.S. were not far behind at that point, but when Ngetich led the front five through the end of the third lap in 18:23, Chelangat was three seconds behind them and Kelati was another three seconds behind the Ugandan.
Ngetich led for much of the ensuing lap, and when she started the fifth loop at 24:23, Kenya’s Big Five were 13 seconds ahead of Chelangat and 24 up on Kelati, who was fading rapidly.
Chebet and company stayed together through the 28-minute mark, but Anyango had dropped off the back of the group 30 seconds later, and Ngetich fell behind 30 seconds after that.
Rengeruk held a slight lead over Chebet and Kipkemoi when they descended a bridge at the 30:15 mark, and Rengeruk and Chebet began to separate from Kipkemoi shortly after that.
Rengeruk held her small lead for another 15 seconds or so and then Chebet, looking quite relaxed, moved into the lead and expanded her advantage over Rengeruk to three seconds by the time she crossed the finish line in 31:05.
Her victory marked the ninth consecutive time that a Kenyan has won the women’s race in the global title meet. It also made her the first woman to have won two championships in a row since Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia did so in 2005-06.
After the five Kenyans, Chelangat finished sixth in 32:00, more than a half-minute back of fifth-place Ngetich. Daisy Jepkemei of Kazakhstan placed seventh in 32:04, followed by Bertukan Welde of Ethiopia in 32:14.
Kelati ended up 15th in 32:53, one place behind three-time defending European cross country champion Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdahl of Norway, who ran 32:49.
Kenya totaled a perfect 10 points while winning its second title in a row, third in four years, and 11th overall.
Ethiopia placed second with 41 points, followed by Uganda with 44, the U.S. with 113, and Spain with 126.
It was the second time in the history of the meet that a women’s team had swept all three medals. The first occurred in 2017, when Kenya had the top six finishers.
“We won the team title, that showed very strong teamwork,” Chebet said in a World Athletics post. “After trials we trained together, we eat the same food. We were a team and being together helped us achieve the best result here.”
She later added that it wasn’t easy to defend her title.
“There is a lot of pressure,” she said. “My target was to be on the podium. I felt I was stronger with about 500 [meters] to go. The course was so good, the weather was good like in Kenya, very sunny, and the obstacles were not as hard.”
In the three other races contested on Saturday, Kenya won the mixed 4 x 2-kilometer relay, Ethiopia went 1-2-3 while wining the women’s U20 (under 20) title, and Kenya had four of the top six finishers in winning the men’s U20 championship.
The mixed relay, which involves a team of two men and two women covering eight kilometers, was first held in 2017. Kenya won the inaugural race in the event, but Ethiopia placed first in 2019 before Kenya was again victorious last year.
Kenya had a one-second lead over Ethiopia after Reynold Kipkorir Cheruiyot and Virginia Nyambura had handled the first two legs. But Kyumbe Munguti of Kenya picked up 19 seconds on Ethiopia’s Adehena Kasaye on his leg and Purity Chepkirui added another eight seconds to the team’s advantage on her anchor carry.
Kenya’s time of 22:15 left it 28 seconds in front of Ethiopia (28:43), which was followed by Great Britain (23:00), Morocco (23:08), and Uganda (23:10).
“I felt confident and I knew anything was possible,” Nyambura was quoted as saying in a World Athletics post. “Whether I started my leg in first, second or third place, I believed I could finish it in the lead.”
Ethiopia would have been hard pressed to catch Kenya under the best of conditions on the anchor leg, but any chance of that happening evaporated during the team’s final exchange when Kasaye inadvertently stepped on the back of the left shoe of Birri Abera, causing it to fall off.
Abera spent several seconds trying to put the shoe back on before starting her leg while only wearing a sock on her left foot. It appeared she decided to ditch the spikes on her right foot at some point during the race as she finished the contest running with a black sock on each foot.
It was not a huge surprise that Ethiopia won the women’s U20 race as it had placed first in the previous four meets. But no one could have predicted that 15-year-old Marta Alemayo would be the runner leading the squad to a sweep of the first three places.
Alemayo, who will turn 16 next month, had finished fourth in the Ethiopian trials race, but she moved to the front of a large lead pack six minutes into the race and she refused to let anyone run ahead of her after that.
She was in first place at the end of the first loop in 6:46 and her split was 12:54 when she led a pack comprised of six Ethiopians, four Kenyans, and two Ugandans at the start of the third lap.
The lead group had been reduced to five runners at the 15:20 mark and it was down to Alemayo, teammate Asayech Ayichew, and Kenyan Sheila Jebet a minute and a half later.
The race for first was down to the two Ethiopians by the 17:30 mark and Alemayo had begun to pull away from Ayichew a minute later before crossing the finish line in 19:28.
Ayichew placed second in 19:32, followed by teammate Robe Dida in 19:38, Jebet in 19:45, and Diana Cherotich of Kenya in 19:47.
Ethiopia had four of the top six finishers and six of the top nine while totaling 12 points and winning its sixth title in the last seven meets and its 14th overall. Kenya placed second with 28 points, followed by Uganda with 48, the U.S. with 88, and Great Britain with 90.
The Americans were led by Ellie Shea and Allie Zealand, who placed 15th and 16th, respectively, with times of 20:50 and 21:08.
European champion Innes Fitzgerald led Great Britain with a 17th-place finish in 21:10. She had been part of the lead pack for the first eight minutes of the race, but she began to fall back after that.
Although Alemayo’s victory was stunning to many, she did not view it that way.
“Yes, I was expecting to do well, and I am not surprised with the win,” she was quoted as saying in a World Athletics post. “The win is not important only in itself, but it will also help set up the rest of my career.
“We were well prepared for this race. We have great coaches, who give us a lot of support.”
The men’s U20 race was expected to be a tight contest between Kenya and Ethiopia and it played out that way as each country had five of the top 10 finishers.
Charles Rotich of Kenya led a large lead pack through the first loop in 5:54 before teammate Johana Erot brought the front group through two laps in 11:09.
The lead pack was down to five Kenyans and four Ethiopians when Kenyan Shadrack Rono Kipkemei came through three loops in 16:37.
The front group had been reduced to five runners by the 19-minute mark and it was down to Ethiopian Mezgebu Sime and Kenyans Matthew Kipkoech Kipruto and Samuel Kibathi two minutes after that.
Kipruto had fallen off the pace by the 22-minute mark and Kibathi surged in front of Sime seconds later and ended up holding him off at the finish line with a 22:40 clocking over the eight-kilometer course.
Sime finished in 22:41, followed by Kipruto in 22:46, Ethiopian Yismaw Dillu in 22:48, Erot in 22.49, and Rotich in 22:51.
Kenya placed first with 15 points to win its second consecutive team title and 26th overall. Ethiopia placed second with 21 points, followed by Uganda with 52, and Japan with 77. South Africa and Morocco each totaled 114 points, but South Africa was awarded fifth place because its No. 5 runner placed 42nd in the race, while Morocco’s finished 59th.
“It was my first world championships, so it means a lot to me to win here," Kibathi was quoted as saying in a World Athletics post. “The pace was very fast and it almost ruined my plans for this race. I had planned to stay behind and attack at the finish. It was so tough and so hard, I feel exhausted now. But it means a lot to me, I wanted this so much so I was really pushing fast towards the finish… My dream for the future is to win an Olympic and world title. I believe this can be a good start for my future career.”
The next edition of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships are scheduled to be held in Tallahassee, Florida, on January 10, 2026. The meet will be contested at Apalachee Regional Park.
I will have my local contact on Mt . Elgon area check to see where he lives. They are very tribe/family oriented. You are right, lots os training bases. When I was at Mt . Elgon last year in July, locals had a 5k fun run for our presence. We did a medical mission to help the Mosopishek people.. The 5k was straight up mountain with about 1,500 vertical feet. Amazing stuff to watch them.
Johnny.. I am headed to Bukwo, Uganda in July. Will be the high altitude Area where our non-profit works. I wonder if Kiplimo will be there training. Went to that area last year.. Didn't meet him, but was introduced to another young Ugandan runner, Kenneth Kilrop.