Who's up for cross country: A Column By Len Johnson

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Those who come to the world cross-country championships in Punta Umbria, Spain, next weekend will be there to praise the event, not to bury it.

Make no mistake, however, cross-country, or rather the world cross-country, is critically ill, with European support for the event collapsing and showing no sign of recovering. The oxygen of publicity, once largely provided by European television networks, has been shut off.

From this year, the championships will go on to a two-year cycle, in the hope that continental championships will fill the gap and provide a pathway to the world event. There are also continued attempts to get cross-country onto the winter Olympic program, which would certainly boost its profile again.

It’s not as if the alarm bells haven’t been ringing. Four years ago, Mombasa provided the magnificent backdrop of the Indian Ocean, huge crowds of passionate Kenyan spectators, the dethroning of the (then) five-time world champion Kenenisa Bekele – and precious few Europeans. The highest placegetter representing Europe in the men’s race was Britain’s Mo Farah in 11^th. African-born runners filled the first 39 places.

Three years ago in Edinburgh, no less a figure than Sebastian Coe spoke up for cross-country at the pre-championships press conference, saying it had been critical in his development as a middle-distance runner and that, in his view, it remained the basis for developing middle and long-distance runners. In the senior men’s race the first non-African finisher was 19^th; the first European, 24^th.

A year later, the championships went to Amman, the sort of exotic location distance runners used to love to go to – as a distance runner, I was raised on stories of Australia’s first participation in Rabat, Morocco, in 1975. Again Europeans were notably absent, with real or imagined security fears being added to the list of excuses. The first European in the senior men was 26^th.

Last year, the championships went to Bydgoszcz in Poland, with the promise of mud (maybe even snow) and jumps to lure the traditionalists back. Poland sent a full team – natch – but few other European federations bothered. Simon Bairu of Canada was 13^th, Farah 20^th: both are African born.

It’s not as if European cross-country is not doing well. Cross-country events haven’t been immune from the channelling of more and more money into the professional football codes, but Europe still supports a full calendar of cross-country events. The European championships, too, are thriving. It is just that few of the runners and countries who take part turn up to the world cross-country a few months later.

Europeans in general, it seems, have given up on being competitive in distance running on the world stage. It doesn’t matter whether it’s cross-country or track. This attitude persists in the face of the evidence provided by Craig Mottram, Chris Solinsky, Matt Tegenkamp and Dathan Ritzenhein, to name a few, that it is possible to compete well against the east African runners.

It is not just a defeatist attitude that is dragging cross-country down. Fewer coaches, and hardly any athletes’ agents, see cross-country as an ideal lead-up for the northern hemisphere marathons.

In Gateshead in 1983, Carlos Lopes finished second in the men’s race, Albert Salazar fourth and Rob de Castella sixth. A few weeks later, ‘Deek’ out-lasted Lopes to win a memorable Rotterdam marathon, with Salazar falling away late in the race to finish fifth.

These days, however, runners are advised to forget the cross-country as a lead-up to a marathon. Few of those following this advice are as good as de Castella, Lopes or Salazar in absolute, much less relative, terms.

Back then, few races clashed directly with the world cross-country. Now, they do, Next weekend sees major half-marathons in Lisbon and New York. New York features Farah and Galen Rupp, two athletes who might otherwise be in Punta Umbria and, in terms of preparation for Daegu and London, might be better off for it.

Indeed, a look at the medallists and finalists in track distance events at recent major championships would suggest that Punta Umbria is the best place to be in late March if you want to do well on the track six months later.

Some argue that 12k cross-country for men, or 8km for women, requires different training than say 1500 or 5000. Yet many middle-distance athletes thrived on cross-country. Coe used it as part of his winter preparation, so too John Walker (4^th in Rabat in 1975), Steve Ovett (4^th in an English national over 14k!), Steve Cram, Hicham El Guerrouj.

Asbel Kiprop emerged as winner of the 8km junior race in Mombasa. Didn’t seem to hinder his progress to fourth in the 1500 at the 2007 world championship and the Olympic gold medal in Beijing the following year.

Reviving cross-country should be linked to reviving track distance running. Maybe more athletes would run the world cross-country if a top-30 pacing, say, on three per-nation basis was regarded as the equivalent of an A-standard for 5000/10,000 (the IAAF already regards a top-20 marathon finish in the world championships as an A-standard in that event).

That would certainly be a more accessible path into the track distance events than trying to get a start in the handful of 10,000 races run in sub-27:40 (men) or sub-31:45 (women).

In any case, once the racing is done in Punta Umbria next weekend, we’ll all have two years to reflect on the future of the world cross-country championships, the IAAF’s oldest world championship event.

Whatever solutions are proposed, they will surely founder without a renewed commitment from all parties to cross-country, and track distance running.