Boniface Kiprop leads Sergiy Lebid (© Lorenzo Sampaolo)
Qatar's Saif Saeed Shaheen, Kenya's Ezekiel Kemboi, Uganda's Boniface Kiprop and Italy's Stefano Baldini in men's field, and the reigning World Cross Country long race champion Benita Johnson from Australia in the women’s division, are the five star names who will highlight what should be another fabulous edition of the Cinque Mulini - IAAF permit - cross country meeting on Sunday 6 February in San Vittore Olona, Italy.
MEN – Shaheen versus Kemboi re-match
The World 3000m steeplechase champion and World record holder Shaheen has competed only once on the international cross country circuit since his Steeplechase win (7:56.94) in the IAAF World Athletics Final in Monaco which ended his 2004 track season. In the star-studded Edinburgh race on 15 January he finished fourth. Shaheen, who broke the World Steeplechase record with 7:53.63 at the TDK Golden League meeting in Brussels last September, will clash against Ezekiel Kemboi, the Olympic Steeplechase champion in Athens, a race which did not feature the young man from Qatar after he was barred under IOC rules following his change of allegiance in 2003.
So the 2005 Cinque Mulini will present a high level re-match between the two best 3000m Steeplechase specialists in the world, htough nothing is ever likely to come near to their dramatic battle in the 2003 World Championships in Paris St. Denis which was eventually won by Shaheen in 8:04.39.
Shaheen runs very sparingly on the cross country surface but can boast a fifth place in the short race at the last World Cross in Brussels which contributed to the overall second place finish for Qatar in the team ranking, the first ever medal for the desert kingdom in the history of the IAAF Cross Country Championships.
Defending champion Kiprop should not to be discounted
Boniface Kiprop from Uganda, the World Junior Cross Country silver medallist in 2003 and 2004, won last year's edition of the Cinque Mulini prevailing ahead the now five-time European Cross Country champion Sergyi Lebid in an impressive front-run race.
Kiprop’s Cinque Mulini win paved the way for a successful summer season for the 19-year-old, who won the World Junior 10,000m title in Grosseto(Champs rec 28:03.77) before taking a prestigious fourth place in the Olympic 10,000 metres in Athens, and then topped off the year with a 27:04.00 World Junior record at the Memorial Ivo Van Damme Golden League meeting in Brussels.
However, as yet Kiprop has not be at his very best during the current season, finishing third in Amorebieta (9 January) and fifth in San Sebastian last Sunday.
Italy’s hero
The 2004 Olympic Marathon champion Stefano Baldini from Italy will run his first race of 2005 just three days after returning from his training camp in Namibia. Baldini, who finished his glorious 2004 on a high with second place in the traditional end of the year road race in Bolzano (31 December), is not a cross country specialist but considers the Cinque Mulini and the Campaccio (13 February) races as two important tests in the build-up to the London Marathon and the World Championships in Helsinki.
The men's line-up is completed by two athletes from Eritrea, Sultan Simret and Ali Abdallah Afringi, the swiss Christian Belz (PB 13:12.16 in the 5000 metres), the former European Junior Vasyl Matvichuk, and Giuliano Battocletti, the best Italian at last year's World Cross Country Championships in Brussels (28th place).
WOMEN – Johnson is the outstanding favourite
Australia's Benita Johnson starts as the outstanding favourite of the women's race. For the reigning World champion the Cinque Mulini is her last european race before returning to Australia where she will compete in the national 10,000m trials for the World track championships and complete her preparation for the defence of her World Cross title St-Etienne/St-Galmier (France) in March.
Benita Johnson has had a successful cross country season highlighted by three wins in Amorebieta, Hannut and San Sebastian and a narrow defeat in the Great Edinburgh Cross country race by the young Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba, the World 5000m champion, who sped to a fresh World Indoor 5000m record (14:32.93) last Saturday in Boston.
The rest of the women's field includes the 800 metres specialist Anita Brägger from Switzerland, Hungarian Livia Toth, Czech Lucie Mullerova, and the Italians Rosanna Martin (9th, short race at 2002 WorldCross in Dublin) and Silvia Weissteiner.
So it looks like Johnson may become only the second Australian to win in the 73 editions of the prestigious Cinque Mulini race, Robert De Castella having taken the win in 1983, a few months before clinching the World Marathon title in Helsinki.
Distinguished history
De Castella is just one of the many big names who have made the history of this fascinating race which is run via a series of ancient mills. The Norwegian Grete Waitz, a six-time winner Cinque Mulini champion, described the italian event as the best cross country race in the world.”
The long list of middle and long distance legends who “have won the Cinque Mulini includes, among the others, Michel Jazy (1962 and 1963), Billy Mills (1965), Gaston Roelants (1968), Kipchoge Keino (1969), David Bedford (1972), Frank Shorter (1973), Filbert Bayi (1975 and 1976), Alberto Cova (the last italian to win the Cinque mulini in 1986), John Ngugi (1989), Moses Tanui (1990), Khalid Skah (1991), Paul Tergat (1995-1998) and Kenenisa Bekele (2002).
Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF
