Kenenisa Bekele leads eventual bronze medallist Gebremariam (ETH) (© Getty Images)
The CampaccioEAA permitcross country race in the northern Italian town of San Giorgio su Legnano, near Milano, will celebrate its 48th edition this Saturday, 10 January.
In the men's race, a mouthwatering battle has been lined-up between Ethiopia's 'double-double' World Cross Country champion Kenenisa Bekele and the four-time European gold medallist Sergiy Lebid of Ukraine. The appearance of 2001 and 2003 New York marathon winner Margaret Okayo (KEN) will be the highlight of the women race.
Overall, the organisers have assembled a great line up for this edition of the Campaccio, which is traditionally the season-opener of the Italian athletics winter. The quality of the event is especially important following the announcement that San Giorgio su Legnano has been chosen as the venue for the 2006 European Cross Country Championships.
"The Europeans in San Giorgio in 2006, when we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our race, represent a dream come true," said Flavio Colombo, the President of the Unione Sportiva San Giorgese, the local club which annually organizes the Campaccio.
Bekele's selective season prior to Brussels
Bekele, who will arrive in Italy this coming Friday, is the big name of the 2004 Campaccio. After scoring a sensational 'double-double' with his wins in both the short and the long course races in the two last editions of the World Cross Country Championships (Dublin 2002 and Lausanne 2003), the young Ethiopian won the World 10,000 metres track title and the bronze in the 5000 metres last summer.
The Ethiopian star has competed just once so far this cross country season. He won the IAAF Permit race in Oeiras (Portugal) in mid-November, and the Campaccio will be one of his few outings in the cross country season before the World Championships in Brussels on 20-21 March.
Bekele won the Campaccio in January 2002 when he followed in the footsteps of his maestro Haile Gebrselassie who finished first here in 1994. Some of the other big names who have taken the honours in the recent years at Campaccio are Bekele 's compatriot Fita Bayesa (1995), the World Marathon record holder Paul Tergat (1997), and the four- time European Cross Country champion Paulo Guerra from Portugal (2001).
Lebid is set to defend his Campaccio title
Sergiy Lebid began his season in great fashion by winning his fourth cross country title in Edinburgh last December. With this win the Italian based Ukranian equalled the winning record of Portugal's Paulo Guerra in the ten-year history of the European Cross Country Championships.
Lebid, who won last year's Campaccio over the Africans thanks to his devastating kick, followed up his European cross win with a second place behind Paul Tergat in Brussels, then a convincing win in the Boclassic road race in Bolzano, and a fifth place in the Amorebieta cross (Spain) last Sunday.
and the rest of a quality field...
Other leading contenders for this Saturday's race are Kenya's Patrick Ivuti, the 2003 World silver medallist, his countryman Pius Muli, 1999 World Youth 3000m champion, Martin Sulle from Tanzania, bronze medallist in last autumn's World Half Marathon Championships in Villamoura, Uganda's Wilson Businei, and Lebid's compatriot Vassilly Matviychuk, the 2001 European Junior cross country champion.
Stefano Baldini, World bronze medallist in the Marathon last summer in Paris, is not a cross country specialist but will use the Campaccio as a test before flying to Namibia for the first of two training camps ahead of the London Marathon on 18 April and the Athens Olympics next August.
Okayo set for women's win
Margaret Okayo returns to San Giorgio su Legnano where she finished second in 2002 behind Paula Radcliffe, the World record holder in the Marathon .
Okayo has won the New York Marathon twice in 2001 and 2003. Her second win in the Big Apple last November was taken in 2:22:31, two minutes off her PB of 2:20:43 when she won in Boston in 2002 (sixth in the all-time list).
Okayo will test her condition three months before the London Marathon, against the 18-year-old Ethiopian Meselesh Melkamu, who was fourth in the World Junior Cross Country Championships in Lausanne, and Aniko Kalovics from Hungary, who was third in December's European Championships in Edinburgh (behind Paula Radcliffe and Elvan Abeylagessie from Turkey).
Another athlete to watch is the promising Italian Silvia La Barbera, European Junior 5000m champion in Tampere, Finland last summer, who will try to bounce back from the disappointment she encoutered at the European cross last month in Edinburgh, where she had to drop out because of a back problem.
