EDINBURGH, March 29: Ethiopian running legend Kenenisa Bekele will be gunning for revenge over defending champion Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea in the headline clash of the World Cross-country Championships here on Sunday.
More than 500 athletes from 70 countries will compete in the championships which comprise men and female’s long course race over 12km and 8km respectively, as well as junior events for both sexes, for a total purse of 280,000 dollars.
Bekele, already the most successful cross country runner ever with 11 individual titles to his name and now seeking an unprecedented sixth victory in the classic 12km long course, pulled out of the last world event in Mombasa, Kenya, shortly before the finish with stomach problems.
That allowed Tadese to notch up a rare victory over the Ethiopian, who has since retained his 10,000m world title on the track, and set a world indoor best for two miles.
Bekele also beat Tadese home at the Great Edinburgh International Cross Country in January, albeit over the shorter distance of 9.3km.
Other contenders include Uganda’s rising star Moses Kipsiro, who matched Tadese for first spot at the Cross Internacional de Italica, in Seville, in January, Kenya’s Gideon Ngatuny and Ethiopia’s Abebe Dinkesa.
Ngatuny, who finished fourth in Mombasa and won the highly-rated Kenya Prisons Championship last month, said: “I can assure Bekele and Tadese that they must prepare well to beat me.”
Kenyan team coach Peter Kirwa was in buoyant mood.
“The team are ready to go,” he said. “The athletes are looking forward to Edinburgh, they have high spirits and are definitely ready for war on Sunday.
“This year’s team is much stronger than last year and we are confident they will do better.”
Ethiopia’s Sileshi Sihine, the 10,000m runner-up in Osaka and double world cross-country individual medallist, with silver from 2006 and bronze from 2004, should also be in the running for the men’s race.
The leading light for non-African runners will likely come in the form of Australian Craig Mottram although he is not expected to make the top 10.
In the women’s event, Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba will also be looking to reinforce her cross credentials around the picturesque 8km Holyrood course in central Edinburgh although her form could be sketchy given her lack of competitive racing.
The 22-year-old, with two world cross-country titles and four world championship golds on the track to her name, faded in the heat in Mombasa as Kenyan-born Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat triumphed.
Although she retained her world 10,000m title in Osaka, Dibaba was forced to cancel the rest of her 2007 track season because of stomach problems, allowing archrival Meseret Defar to take over the mantle of the African nation’s star female runner.
Kiplagat will not be in Scotland to defend her title, nor Defar, with Dibaba’s main rivals likely to be compatriots Gelete Burka and Meselech Melkamu.
Melkamu, a bronze medallist in Mombasa, won a silver medal over 3000m at the world indoors in Valencia earlier this month behind Defar, while Burka was fourth in Mombasa and has recently been crowned Ethiopian cross champion.
Despite being staged in Britain for the first time since 1995, the championships will be missing many of the host nation’s leading distance runners, including Paula Radcliffe, the 2001 and 2002 champion, Mara Yamauchi and Jo Pavey.—AFP