Week in Review: Kwizera extends winning streak
Burundian wins third consecutive race on World Athletics Cross Country Tour
With his victory in the 30th Cross Internacional de Soria in Soria, Spain, on Sunday, Rodrigue Kwizera of Burundi might very well have clinched at least a tie for his third consecutive overall men’s title in the World Athletics Cross Country Tour.
Although the race in Soria was only the fourth of 16 gold level contests scheduled for the 2024-25 season, it marked the third time that the 25-year-old Kwizera had crossed the finish line in first place. And with the overall championship based on a runner’s top three performances during the season, it’s going to be hard for someone to total more points that Kwizera has during his three victories.
After previously defeating runner-up Oscar Chelimo of Uganda by 12 seconds and two seconds, respectively, in races in the Spanish cities of Amorebieta-Etxano on Oct. 20 and Atapuerca a week later, Kwizera clocked 23 minutes 17 seconds over an 8,000-meter course on Sunday to finish comfortably ahead of second-place Ayele Tadesse of Ethiopia, who clocked 27:26.
Matthew Kipchumba Kipsang of Kenya and Wegene Addisu of Ethiopia were credited with identical times of 23:31 while finishing in third and fourth place.
After leading the front group through the first two-kilometer loop of the race, the 19-year-old Tadesse briefly opened up a two-second lead over Addisu a kilometer or so later.
Kwizera was biding his time in third place at that point in the race, but he soon drew even with the Ethiopian duo, and after the pace slowed during the fifth kilometer of the contest, the Burundian runner was at the head of the field with a loop to go.
He then picked up the pace with 1,500 meters left and soon had a clear lead over second-place Kipsang, who was another 10 meters ahead of Tadesse and Addisu.
“I’m satisfied as my target was the win and I managed to get it,” Kwizera said in a World Athletics post. “At first I felt a bit uncomfortable as I’m accustomed to training at sea level and Soria is over 1000m altitude. Anyway, I controlled the race but preferred to stay behind to protect myself from the wind and only unleash my attack in the closing lap.”
It was the third consecutive victory in the Cross Internacional de Soria for Kwizera, who finished eighth in the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia, in February of last year, as well as seventh in the 10,000 in the World track and field championships in Budapest, Hungary, six months later.
He is expected to run in the 92nd Cinque Mulini cross country meet in San Vittore Olona, Italy, this coming Sunday. A victory there would make him the winner of four of the first five gold level meets of this season and could further increase his chances of winning the overall title for the current campaign.
Victorious start to season: While Rodrigue Kwizera of Burundi posted his third victory of the season in the men’s race of the 30th Cross Internacional de Soria in Soria, Spain, on Sunday, Mercy Chepkemoi of Kenya won the women’s contest in her opening effort of the World Athletics Cross Country Tour.
The 19-year-old Chepkemoi, who placed 12th in the U20 race of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, in March, clocked 26:48 over the 8,000-meter course.
She was followed by Francine Niyomukunzi of Burundi, who finished second in 26:55, and the Kenyan tandem of Diana Chepkemoi and Sharon Chepkemoi, who placed third and fourth with times of 27:11 and 27:28.
Diana Chepkemoi and Sharon Chepkemoi are not related to each other. Nor are either of them related to Mercy Chepkemoi.
The three Chepkemois and Niyomukunzi were clear of the field by the end of the first two-kilometer loop of the race and they ran together for most of the next two laps. However, Mercy Chepkemoi was able to break away from everyone but Niyomukunzi shortly before the start of the final loop.
After running together for the ensuing 1,500 meters or so, Chepkemoi made an unsuccessful attempt to break away from Niyomukunzi with 600 meters to go. However, she had better luck 300 meters later while on her way to a winning margin of seven seconds over the Burundian, who won the season-opening race in Amoerbieta-Etxano, Spain, on Oct. 20 before finishing third a week later in the Spanish city of Atapuerca.
“It was not an easy race because of the hills but I felt quite strong,” Chepkemoi said. “Today was my first outing in Europe and it’s very important for me to win at a Gold permit like Soria.”
Teenagers prevail: Ugandans Keneth Kiprop and Charity Cherop won their respective men’s and women’s races in the Cardiff Cross Country Challenge in Cardiff, Wales, last Saturday.
The event was the third gold level meet of the World Athletics Cross Country Tour for the 2024-25 season.
The 19-year-old Kiprop, a bronze medalist in the 5,000 meters in the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima, Peru, in August, clocked 27:06 over the 9.6-kilometer layout while outkicking Vincent Mutai of Kenya for the win for the second year in a row in Cardiff.
Cherop, 17, also outkicked a Kenyan when she edged Sheila Jebet by a second with a time of 20:16 over the 6.4-kilometer course.
After Zak Muhamed of Great Britain had led a lead pack of nine runners during the early part of the men’s race, Mutai surged toward the end of the first 3.2-kilometer loop and the front group was soon reduced to six individuals running in single file behind one another.
However, those half dozen runners soon bunched up before Mutai and the Ugandan duo of Kiprop and Daniel Kibet surged away from everyone else at the 23-minute mark.
Mutai and Kiprop then dropped Kibet with less than a kilometer remaining and Kiprop broke clear of the Kenyan as they entered the final straightaway.
After Kiprop and Mutai finished in 27:06 and 27:08, respectively, Kibet placed third in 27:15. He was followed by the Burundian duo of Celestin Ndikumana and Emile Hafashimana, who clocked 27:19 and 27:21.
Neils Laros, a 19-year-old Dutch runner who had set a national record of 3:29.54 while finishing sixth in the men’s 1,500 in the Olympic Games in Paris, placed 10th in Cardiff in 27:43.
In the women’s race, the British duo of Kate Axford and Izzy Fry led a lead group of 11 runners after the first six minutes of the contest.
Cherop soon moved to the fore and she was in the lead when the front group had been reduced to her and Brits Axford, Fry, and Cari Hughes at the end of the first 3.2-kilometer loop.
Jebet moved into fifth place around the 14-minute mark, but Cherop opened up a lead over Axford and Co. with approximately 1,500 meters left.
The bronze medalist in the 5,000 in the World U20 Championships, Cherop continued to expand her lead for a while longer. However, Jebet made a late, but belated, rush at her during the final minute of the race after she had overtaken Axford.
After Cherop and Jebet finished in 20:15 and 20:16, respectively, Axford placed third in 20:21, followed by Hughes in 20:25, and Fry in 20:30.
Contrasting victories: Yemane Hailesellasie of Eritrea and Fentaye Belayneh of Ethiopia employed significantly different tactics in winning the men’s and women’s divisions of the Boston Half on Sunday.
Hailesellasie clocked 1 hour 1 minute 46 seconds over the hilly half marathon route while finishing 15 seconds ahead of second-place Isaac Kipkemboi of Kenya, who ran 1:02:01. Kieran Lumbe of Canada placed third in 1:02:03.
Belayneh took the women’s race in 1:10:26 after finishing a second ahead of compatriots Mestawut Fikir and Senayet Getachew in a race in which the gap between first and seventh place was six seconds.
The 26-year-old Hailesellasie, who had finished seventh in Boston in 2022 and third last year, was part of a 12-runner lead pack that came through five miles in 23:28. But he had an eight-second advantage over second-place Kipkemboi when he passed the 10-mile mark in 47:00 and his lead had grown to 16 seconds when he came through 20 kilometers in 58:38.
Hailesellasie, who had finished fifth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 and seventh in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, in 2022, said afterward that the undulating course played to his advantage.
“Because I had a good training session, I knew I could win here,” he said in a post on the race website. “It was a fantastic and really good course, and I liked it like that.”
In the women’s race, Calli Thackery of Great Britain led a 12-runner lead pack through the first five miles in 27:07 before Daisy Jepkemei of Kenya paced a lead group of eight past 10 miles in 53:46.
Fikir was credited with being in the lead when she went past 20 kilometers in 1:07:07, but five other women were given the same split, while Belayneh was in seventh in 1:07:08 and Mercy Chelangat of Kenya was in eighth at 1:07:09.
The front group remained tightly bunched for a short while longer, but the 24-year-old Belayneh opened up a small lead on the final uphill portion of the course and won her first Boston Half title following a 12th-place finish last year.
After Fikir and 19-year-old Getachew finished a second behind Belayneh in 1:10:27, Veronica Leleo of Kenya placed fourth in 1:10:29 and Melknat Wuda of Ethiopia was fifth in 1:10:30.
“I knew Boston was a good course and I prepared very well, and I turned out to be the winner,” Belayneh said. “It was a tough race, but I knew I would hold on. I had a little bit left over, and I used that to win.”
Controversial omission: World Athletics announced its finalists for six athlete of the year awards last week and the omission of Beatrice Chebet of Kenya received a lot of criticism online.
Chebet won the women’s 5,000 and 10,000 meters in the Olympic Games in Paris in August after lowering the world record in the 10,000 to 28:54.14 in the Prefontaine Classic in May. In addition, her top two times of 14:09.52 and 14:09.82 in the 5,000 meters were the seventh- and eighth-fastest ever run. However, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the U.S. and Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia were the two finalists for the women’s track athlete of the year award.
McLaughlin-Levrone’s inclusion was not a surprise as she ran world records of 50.65 and 50.37 in the 400 hurdles during the season, with the second record coming in the Olympic final. She also ran a sizzling 47.71 second leg on an American team that won the Olympic title in 3:15.27, the second-fastest time ever, and she was unbeaten in the 200 and 400 while posting season bests of 22.07 and 48.75, respectively.
Alfred had the best season of her career as she won the Olympic title in the 100 and placed second in the 200 while posting national records of 10.72 in the former race and 21.86 in the latter. She also won the women’s 60 in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, in March. However, she was beaten in three of her eight 100-meter finals during the season and posted two victories and two runner-up finishes in her four finals in the 200.
One would surmise that Alfred was chosen as a finalist over Chebet because she received more votes from fans than her Kenyan counterpart when it came to that part of the selection formula.
Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine and Nafi Thiam of Belgium are the two finalists for the women’s field athlete of the year, while Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya and Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands are the finalists for the women’s out of stadium athlete of the year.
Mahuchikh won the Olympic title in the high jump and raised the world record to 2.10 meters (6 feet 10¾ inches) during an outdoor season in which she was undefeated in seven meets.
Thiam won the heptathlon in the European Athletics Championships in Rome in June with a score of 6,848 points before winning the Olympic Games with a total of 6,880 points.
Those were the top two scores in the world this year.
Chepngetich placed ninth in the London Marathon in April, but she crushed the world record in the Chicago Marathon last month when her 2:09:56 clocking bettered the previous best of 2:11:53 that had been set by Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia in the Berlin Marathon last year.
Chepngetich also ran 1:05:58 in winning the Buenos Aires Half Marathon in August.
Hassan finished fourth in the Tokyo Marathon in March, but she won the Olympic title in a race in which she outkicked Assefa for the gold medal.
Add athlete of the year finalists: Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway and Letsile Tebogo of Botswana are the two finalists for World Athletics’ men’s track athlete of the year, while Mondo Duplantis of Sweden and Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece will vie for the field athlete of the year, and Brian Pintado of Ecuador and Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia are the contenders for the out of stadium athlete of the year.
Defending champion Ingebrigtsen finished a disappointing fourth in the 1,500 in the Olympic Games, but he bounced back to win the gold medal in the 5,000 before later crushing the world record in the 3,000 with a time of 7:17.55. Earlier in the season, he also lowered his European record in the 1,500 to 3:26.73 while strengthening his hold on fourth on the all-time performer list.
Tebogo became the first African to win the men’s 200 in the Olympic Games when he clocked a continental record of 19.46 seconds in Paris and he also lowered his national record in the 100 to 9.86 when he finished sixth in that event. In addition, he ran a stellar 43.04-second anchor leg on a Botswanan team that placed second to the U.S. in the 4 x 400 relay in the Olympics, lowered the world best in the 300 to 30.69 in February, and lowered his personal best in the 400 to 44.29 in March.
Duplantis was absolutely sensational as he won the Olympic and World indoor titles, raised the world record three times and was unbeaten in 15 meets, including 11 outdoors. His second world record of 6.25 (20-6) came in the Olympic final and his third of 6.26 (20-6½) occurred 20 days later in a Diamond League meet in Chorzow, Poland.
Like Duplantis, Tentoglou won gold medals in the Olympic Games and World indoor championships. He won a combined 12 of 15 competitions during the indoor and outdoor seasons and his personal best of 8.65 (28-4½) in the European Athletics Championships was the longest jump in the world this year and moved him into a tie for 14th on the all-time performer list.
Pintado won the 20-kilometer walk in the Olympic Games and he also had first-, second-, and fourth-place finishes in the other three 20k races in which he finished.
Tola finished seventh in the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon in the United Arab Emirates in February, dropped out of the London Marathon in April, and finished fourth in the New York City Marathon on Nov. 3. But he won the Olympic title in August.
Victorious return: Senior Evan Noonan of Dana Hills High School in Dana Point, California, won his third consecutive individual title in the South Coast League Finals cross country meet at Irvine Regional Park last Friday.
Noonan was expected to be one of the top prep boys’ runners in the nation this season after winning his second consecutive Division 3 title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships last year. But he had slowed dramatically in the final 400 meters of his two previous races while finishing 18th in the championship race of the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic in Irvine on Sept. 21 and 10th in the champion race of the Nike XC Town Twilight Invitational in Terra Haute, Indiana, on Oct. 5.
Medical tests had revealed that Noonan had improper balances in his salt, carbohydrate, and sugar levels. But he looked much more like his former self in the South Coast League Finals as his winning time of 14:03.1 left him well in front of the 14:22.0 clocking of senior Dylan Jubak of Trabuco Hills High in Mission Viejo.
While Noonan’s time was slower than his winning effort of 13:39.0 over the same course in last year’s league meet, he was happy with his performance as his upcoming race schedule is expected to include the CIF Southern Section Prelims at Mt. San Antonio College on Saturday, the Southern Section Finals on Nov. 23 and the state meet in Fresno on Nov. 30.
If he performs up to expectations in that meet, he will then compete in the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 7.
“It was really fun to come back,” Noonan said in a post-race interview posted by youthrunnermag. “I had a great day. I just kind of went through the tempos of the course for the most part and then kind of kicked it in to the finish. Happy with the 14-minute performance and I’m excited to see what we can do as a group over CIF and state.”
Looking ahead: Nine regional cross country championships will be held tomorrow (Nov. 15) to determine the fields for the NCAA Division I title meet that will be held at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Verona, Wisconsin, on Nov. 23.
The nine regional meets, in alphabetical order, are as follows: Great Lakes championships at Silver Creek Metro Park in Norton, Ohio; Mid-Atlantic championships at Blue/White Golf Courses in State College, Pennsylvania; Midwest championships at Newman Golf Course in Peoria, Illinois; Mountain championships at Washoe Golf Course in Reno, Nevada; Northeast championships at Hopkinton State Fairgrounds Cross Country Course in Contoocook, New Hampshire; South championships at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Florida; South Central championships at Dale Watts ’71 Cross Country Course in Bryan-College Station, Texas; Southeast championships at Winthrop University Recreation Complex in Rock Hill, South Carolina; West championships at Colfax Golf Club in Colfax, Washington.
You can click here for more information.
In memory: Dallas Long of the U.S., the 1964 Olympic champion in the men’s shot put and an athlete who set several world records in the event, died of natural causes on Sunday (Nov. 10) in Whitefish, Montana. He was 84.
Long first tied the world record of 19.25 (63-2) in 1959 before twice raising it to 19.38 (63-7) and 19.67 (64-6½) in March of 1960. However, he finished third behind U.S. teammates Bill Nieder and Parry O’Brien in the Olympic Games in Rome that year.
He raised the world record to 20.08 (65-10½) in 1961 before setting three more records in 1964, topped by a career best of 20.68 (67-10¼).
He won three consecutive NCAA titles for USC from 1960-62 after having raised the U.S. prep record with the 6 kilogram (12 pound) implement to 69-3 as a senior at North High School in Phoenix in 1958.
Long, who was a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, earned a Doctorate in Dental Surgery from USC and a Doctorate in Medicine from Washington University in St. Louis. He became a dentist after his competitive days were over and he later practiced emergency medicine.
He was ranked among the top six shot putters in the world by Track & Field News every year from 1958-1965, including No. 1 rankings in 1961, ’62, and ’64, and No. 2 rankings in 1958 and ’59.