ADDIS ABABA – The Ethiopian men’s and women’s athletics team are ready to repeat history at the 43rd World Cross Country Championship that is set to take place in Aarhus, Denmark, next Saturday.
The Ethiopian athletes were selected by the results they earned at the 36th Janmeda Cross Country Championship held in February.
The Janmeda race used to serve as qualifier for the 2019 IAAF World Cross Country Championship.
This is the biggest International Association of Athletic Federation (IAAF) race that takes place every two years.
Ethiopian and Kenyans have been the best performers in this race but the Ethiopian share bigger than its neighboring rival.
With 6 successive title wins Kenenisa Bekele has the record in the history of the World Cross Country Championship. So far no other athlete intruded in to his territory.
Kenenisa turned out to be the track runner after quitting from Cross country Championship. Then he became the giants in the track race following his victory in 2003 World Athletics Championship in 10, 000 meters.
The next year, in 2004, he won the first Olympic gold medal in 10, 000m in Athens leaving behind the athletics legend Haile Gebreselassie to take the fifth place. Sileshi Sihen earned silver medal in Athens in 10, 000m.
In Beijing Olympics in 2008 Kenenisa made another remarkable result with 5, 000m and 10, 000m double. This was just a repeat of the result earned by the Ethiopian hero the late Miruts Yifter in 1980 in Moscow Olympics.
In the women’s event Derartu Tulu, Gete Wami and Tirunesh Dibaba had big names and fame in the World Cross Country Championship.
Deratu has special history in connection to the World Cross Country Championship. Just months before the 2000 Sydney Olympics Derartu won the February Janmeda Cross Country race. The win helped her to take part in the World Cross Country Championship that was held in Portugal in which she emerged victorious with little difficulty.
The victory was special because it was the first big win for Derartu in two years. She was sidelined from competition for nearly two years due to her first child delivery at that time. One could say this is the legacy of Derartu to the the Ethiopian female athletes.
What is expected in Denmark is to bring back the big name of Ethiopia in this Championship.
In the 42nd IAAF World Cross Country Championship held in Uganda Kenya emerged first with a tally of 12 medals while Ethiopia won the second place on nine medals.
This shows that the World Cross Country Championship has been fully dominated by African athletes. The fear is that the world athletics governing body, IAAF, may one day decide to drop the tough cross country race like the 10, 000m and 5, 000m in the Diamond League.
The IAAF’s decision to drop the 5,000 meters from its Diamond League track and field series was rejected by Ethiopia and Kenya. Both claim that this is not acceptable and damaging to the middle and long distance races.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced changes to its Diamond League format as of 2020, including a drop from 32 to 24 events, a reduction from 14 to 13 meetings and a decrease of the maximum current track event distance of 5,000 meters to 3,000m.
Ethiopia and Kenya who are dominant in 5, 000m made strong statement against that decision. Both Ethiopia and Kenya accused the sport’s governing body of trying to “kill long-distance running.”
There was a talk of dropping the cross country race a few years ago but it remained in place because of the opposition of the IAAF member states.
African countries staged the World Cross Country championship five times. Morocco (two times), South Africa, Kenya and Uganda were the host nations. There is hope that Ethiopia may be awarded to host the 2023 or 2025 Championship if the country’s federation requests to host.
The performance of the Ethiopian young athletes in Denmark in different distances will also be helpful if the request to host the championship is presented.
Herald March 26/2019
SOLOMON BEKELE
