Mombasa WXC logo 2007 (© c)
MonteCarloThe Final Entry deadline for the 35th IAAF World Cross Country Championships passed at midnight (Monaco time) 12 March, with 66 Member Federations confirming their participation at the championships which take place in Mombasa, Kenya, on 24 March 2007.
The number of entries represents seven more countries than participated at the previous edition of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships which were held in Fukuoka, Japan, last April.
The figure is comparable to the last two editions held in Africa. In Cape Town, South Africa in 1996 and in Marrakech, Morocco in 1998, respectively there were 65 and 66 countries represented.
The World Cross Country Championships, the oldest IAAF World Athletics Series event having begun under the IAAF’s banner in 1973, has been held in Africa on three previous occasions. Rabat, Morocco in 1975, the first edition on the continent attracted 26 nations, at a time when the former International Cross Country Championships (1903-1972) were just beginning to rise in global participation.
Five out of six Fukuoka champions return
With a change in format, there is just one senior men’s and one senior women’s race to be contested in Mombasa, with men’s and women’s junior competitions making up the four race timetable. Of last year’s six individual winners in Fukuoka, five are entered for Mombasa, the three Ethiopians Kenenisa Bekele (double title-holder), Tirunesh Dibaba, and Gelete Burka, and in the junior ranks the Kenyan Pauline Korikwiang.
IAAF
