Edwin Soi en route to his Campaccio win (© Lorenzo Sampaolo)
Edwin Soi and Sergiy Lebid will return to the Campaccio EAA Permit Cross Country race on 6 January one year after the fabulous nail-biting neck-to-neck race won by the Kenyan by the narrowest of margins after a breathtaking sprint. The Kenyan dipped into the finish-line sharing the same time with Lebid.
The clash between the 5000m olympic bronze medallist Soi and eight-times European Cross Country champion Lebid will highlight the 52nd edition of the Campaccio in San Giorgio su Legnano near Milan.
In San Giorgio su Legnano Soi began his successful 2008 season in which he went on to collect not only his Olympic bronze but also a second consecutive win over the same distance at the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart.
Soi and Lebid are in very good form as shown at the Bolzano Boclassic Road Race on 31 December where the Kenyan took his second win in a row beating Lebid by four seconds.
Lebid, who claimed his eighth European Cross Country crown in Brussels, will be looking for his second win in the Campaccio, a race where he finished first in 2003, second in 2007 and third in 2002 and 2004. Lebid is a local favourite in San Giorgio su Legnano, which is just a few kilometres away from his Italian training base in Feriolo di Baveno on the Lake Maggiore; he will count on the support of his Italian fans.
Soi and Lebid are not the only top names of the Campaccio which traditionally opens the Italian athletics season at the end of the Christmas and New Year Festivities.
Eliud Kipchoge, Olympic silver medallist in the 5000m in Bejing and former World champion over this distance in Paris in 2003, is the latest addition to what promises to be another exciting Campaccio race.
Soi and Kipchoge will lead a formidable Kenyan team which also features Leonard Komon and Moses Mosop.
Komon finished second at the World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh in 2008 behind Kenenisa Bekele. Later in the year the 21-year-old Komon dipped under the 27 minutes barrier in the 10,000m for the first time in his career running 26:57.08 in Hengelo.
Mosop won the World Cross Country silver medal on home-turf in Mombasa in 2007. After a career hampered by a series of injuries, Mosop, also a world bronze medallist in the 10,000m in Helsinki 2005, seems to be coming back to his best form.
Ethiopia will be represented by Ibrahim Jeylan Gashu, who won the 2006 World junior gold medal in the 10,000 metres in Bejing. Jeylan set the 10,000 world youth record in Brussels in 2006 running 27:02.81.
The Italian Cross Country team led by fresh European under 23 champion Andrea Lalli and Daniele Meucci will also compete. Both Lalli and Meucci have a very good memory of the San Giorgio su Legnano course where they won European Cross Country medals during the 2006 European Cross Country Championships. Lalli won the individual European Junior title contributing to the European Junior team title for the Italian team. Last December Lalli added a European under 23 gold and a silver medal in the team competition to his victory as a junior.
Meucci finished third in the Under 23 race at the European Championships in San Giorgio su Legnano and then he won a continental bronze medal in the 10,000m at the European Under 23 Championships in Debrecen 2007. This year Meucci finished 12th in the senior race at the European Championships in Brussels, his first winter competition of the season.
Samitov Galkina vs Kalovics in the women’s contest
The women’s race will be a all-European competition which features the re-match of the 2008 Boclassic race between Gulnara Samitova Galkina from Russia and Aniko Kalovics from Hungary.
Galkina capped her memorable 2008 year crowned by the Olympic title and the World record in the 3000m Steeplechase in Bejing with a solid win in the Boclassic Road Race on 31 December. The Russian is the first ever women’s Olympic Steeplechase champion and the first woman in history to dip under the nine-minutes barrier with her 8:58.81 in Bejing.
Kalovics knows the Campaccio course very well. She won this race in 2004 after an impressive gun-to-tape race and finished second in 2007.
Another woman with a good memory of the famous course will be Tetyana Holovchenko who took the European cross country title in 2006.
Cristina Casandra from Romania, fifth in the 3000m Steeplechase at the Olympic Games with a new national record of 9:16.85, completes the top international field.
Italian hopes are carried by Elena Romagnolo, who crowned a successful 2008 year with the Olympic final in the 3000m Steeplechase in Bejing where she finished 11th after setting the Italian record in the heats with 9:27.48.
The programme of the Campaccio will be opened as in the tradition by a series of youth and junior competitions before the top international races.
The Campaccio organizers recently presented their bid to host the 2011 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in San Giorgio su Legnano which has already staged a highly successful edition of the European Cross Country Championships in 2006.
Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF
