Leonard Komon's roll in Spain continues in Soria (© Luis Angel Tejedor)
MonteCarloWith the ‘27th Cross Internacional de Itálica’ having taken place last Sunday (18), the international cross country season reached its halfway point. The cross country meeting in Seville, Spain, was the fifth of ten IAAF Cross Country Permit Meetings on the 2008/2009 competition calendar, which began in Oeiras, Portugal in November 2008 and will end in Fukuoka, Japan in March 2009.
Three weeks after the last permit meeting takes place, the 37th IAAF World Cross Country Championships will be hosted by Amman, Jordan, on Saturday 28 March. As usual, these annual championships mark the culmination of the cross country year, but with a different victor in all of the men’s and women’s races so far contested on the IAAF circuit predictions about possible medallists in Amman would be a little premature.
Ethiopia’s multiple World champion Kenenisa Bekele who holds the record number of 12 individual World Cross Country titles (6 long course, 5 five short course, 1 junior) is presently recovering from injury but what of his fellow medallists from the 2008 World Cross Country Championships?
Kenya’s Leonard Patrick Komon, the reigning silver medallist, took a convincing triumph in the permit meeting in Soria, Spain in November but he was one of those blown away in Seville last weekend in the epic tussle between Bekele’s younger brother Tariku and eventual winner Uganda’s Moses Kipsiro.
Zersenay Tadese, last year’s bronze medallist and the World champion in 2007, was one of the favourites to win at the Edinburgh permit meeting on 10 January but had to give quarter to Ethiopia’s resurgent talent Abebe Dinkesa who came home first, and Kenyan Mang'ata Ndiwa who finished second.
What Kenenisa Bekele is to men’s cross country, so compatriot and fellow Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba is fast becoming in women’s running history at the World Cross Country Championships… that’s to say the most successful ever exponent. At present Dibaba has five individual World Cross Country golds to her name (3 long course, 1 short course, 1 junior), a total of individual honours which Norway’s Grete Waitz also has thanks to her five senior titles won in the 1970s and 80s.
Dibaba hasn’t run cross country yet this season and will be concentrating on indoor competition in the coming weeks but that is nothing unusual for the now 23-year-old, so don’t be at all surprised if she toes the start line in Amman on 28 February.
Kenya’s 2008 World Cross Country bronze medallist Linet Masai, the 2007 Junior champion, has made great strides in her career in the last 12 months. Still 19, the Olympic 10,000m fourth placer recently won the Edinburgh permit meeting beating among others Ethiopia’s Mestawet Tufa who was World silver medallist last year. Tufa herself has been in great form missing the World 15km record by just two seconds in November.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
IAAF Cross Country Permit Race Winners, as of 21 Jan 2009
15/11/2008 Oeiras, POR
Men – Titus Masai (KEN)
Women – Inês Monteiro (POR)
23/11/2008 Soria, ESP
Men – Leonard Komon (KEN)
Women – Jane Kiptoo (KEN)
03/01/2009 Antrim, GBR
Men – Imane Merga (ETH)
Women – Stephanie Twell (GBR)
10/01/2009 Edinburgh, GBR
Men – Abebe Dinkesa (ETH)
Women – Linet Masai (KEN)
18/01/2009 Seville, ESP
Men – Moses Kipsiro (UGA)
Women – Florence Kiplagat (KEN)
Click here for permit meeting calendar
