Enock Koech gives Kenya second gold
of the day 
Sean Wallace-Jones for IAAF

24 March 2001 - Running clear of the rest of the field,
20 year old Enock Koech was the decisive victor in the men&#146;s short cross, the second
race of this first day of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Ostend.

After the near-pedestrian start of the junior
women&#146;s race, which was the first event in today&#146;s timetable, the men&#146;s
short cross got off to a sprint start on the heavy ground of the Wellington Hippodrome.

Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia was the early leader and took
the field through the first kilometre, before the Kenya squad took over the running, with
Koech and his team-mate Benjamin Limo heading the rest of the Kenyans as they led the race
through to the finish.

Koech, who was the winner of the 4 kilometre race at the
Kenyan national championships left nothing to chance, once he had taken the lead and with
Limo gradually edged clear of the rest, with Bekele the only non-Kenyan managing to keep
any sort of contact with the pair as they streaked around the muddy course.

Bekele slipped ahead of Limo in the final metres to cross
the line two seconds behind Koech, who was timed across the line in 12:40 and a second
ahead of third-paced Limo in a tightly bunched finish that saw a mere nine seconds
separating the first eight finishers, with eighth place going to Australian Craig Mottram.


Morocco&#146;s Brahim Boulami trailed in ninth, eleven
seconds after the leaders.

In the end, Kenya truly routed the rest of the field,
taking six of the first seven places! With the leading four places from each country
counting towards team points, Kenya also took the highest step of the podium in the team
competition, followed by Morocco in second place and Ethiopia in third.

It was Kenya's fourth successive individual and team
victory in the men's short course race since the introduction of the event in 1998.

&quot;Even though the course was very tough, I
didn&#146;t feel any pressure on me. I didn&#146;t like the mud or the cold but I knew I
could run a good race,&quot; said Koech whose race in Ostend was his first ever outside
Kenya. 

Koech comes from Kericho, a small village in the Rift
Valley and started running in 1999. Francis Nyatome, Kenya&#146;s press attaché describes
him as a natural talent. &quot;His first race was a district race which he easily won. He
then won the Province race and then the National high school championships.&quot; 

&quot;I want to compete more on the track this summer,
probably over 1500m which is my favourite race.&quot;

Koech who trains with Josep Chelimo attended Lelmokwo
school from which he graduated in 1999 before deciding to concentrate on track and field. 

He joined Jos Hermens&#146; group last summer and is
delighted to be part of such a famous training group. &quot;Jos is great,&quot; he says,
&quot;and I am proud to have been chosen to be one of his group.&quot;

Limo said that they had planned to go out fast and stamp
their authority on the race in the early stages, but the consditions of the course meant
that their original tactics were very quickly revised. &quot;I think you can see that
things did not go according to plan. John Kibowen was way back in the early stages and he
was the defending champion.&quot;

Quotes by Laura Arcoleo.

&nbsp;

Running clear of the rest of the field, 20 year old Enock Koech was the decisive victor in the men’s short cross, the second race of this first day of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Ostend.

Enock Koech gives Kenya second Gold of the Championships

Mud is &quot;okay&quot; for Kenyans 
Mark Butler for IAAF

24 March 2001 - Dan Muchoki, Head Coach with the Kenyan
team in Ostend, has dispelled the myth that Kenyan and African runners will be unhappy
with the muddy conditions here. &quot;There's nothing to complain about,&quot; he
explained, &quot;because the conditions are god's work. They were caused by rain, not
someone who came with a watering can. The conditions are bad for everyone, not for any
particular country. For me it is okay.&quot;

Muchoki feels that be best tactic on this course will be
to run from the front. &quot;I have gone over the course.&quot; he revealed, &quot;and
there are some areas where it will be a problem to overtake. You will need to start fast
and be very strong in the mud, there are areas almost one feet deep. It's best to get in
front at the start and control the pace.&quot;

Happily, it appears that there are none of the problems
which beset the Kenyan men's team in Vilamoura when there was a protracted argument over
the final selection for the men's long race. &quot;It would call it a bit of confusion
about the wildcard issue,&quot; reflected Muchoki. &quot;To outsiders it was a war between
the athletes and the federation, but it wasn't like that.&quot;

Dan Muchoki, Head Coach with the Kenyan team in Ostend, has dispelled the myth that Kenyan and African runners will be unhappy with the muddy conditions

Mud is "okay" for Kenyans

Steven Downes for IAAF

24 March 2001 - Sonia O&#146;Sullivan, the only athlete
ever to have won the long and short races at the IAAF World Cross-country Championships,
on Saturday suggested that trying to double up successfully in Ostend this year could be
too demanding, even for runners of the calibre of Paula Radcliffe and Gete Wami.

Radcliffe and Wami took the gold and silver medals after
a gruelling slog through a Belgian quagmire in Saturday&#146;s eight kilometre race.

And both are among the entries for Sunday&#146;s
&quot;short&quot; race, over four kilometres, as both Britain and Ethiopia bid to win team
medals in the event.

With her first senior World Cross gold medal around her
neck, Radcliffe was uncertain whether she would race again on Sunday. &quot;I need to have
a warm down and a massage, and we&#146;ll see how I feel in the morning,&quot; said the
British woman.

&quot;I might as well run, though, because I&#146;ve got
nothing to lose. This was the one I really wanted, though.&quot;

Radcliffe has experience of having run back-to-back races
at the World Cross-country from last year in Vilamoura, Portugal, when she finished fifth
and fourth on successive days.

But O&#146;Sullivan, the double champion in Marrakech,
Morocco, in 1998, reckons that the gruelling conditions in Ostend this year make such a
prospect far more difficult.

&quot;It&#146;s not the sort of place you&#146;d choose
to go for a run,&quot; O&#146;Sullivan said after jogging around the course on Friday
night. &quot;It&#146;s downright boggy in places. I remember it was like that in Durham
one year. I did OK, but it wouldn&#146;t be my favourite conditions.&quot;

Marrakech in 1998 was the first year that the short races
were added to the programme. &quot;When I did it, it was the first year that there were
two races, and the first year that the long race was extended to 8km. Everyone was a bit
conservative in the long race that year, and that helped me.

&quot;The course was firm and fast, too, and we
definitely know that&#146;s not going to be the case this time. It could really take it
out of you,&quot; O&#146;Sullivan said.

O&#146;Sullivan, the winner of the Olympic 5,000 metres
silver medal last year, had suffered a heavy cold over the past week. She was due to make
a late decision on whether she should race herself in the 4km event on Sunday after a
training run on Saturday evening.

Sonia O’Sullivan, the only athlete ever to have won the long and short races at the IAAF World Cross-country Championships, on Saturday suggested that trying to double up successfully in Ostend this year could be too demanding, even for runners of the calibre of Paula Radcliffe and Gete Wami.

Double trouble ahead

Steven Downes for IAAF

24 March 2001 - Ostend - The victory was only secured in
the final 200 yards, but for Paula Radcliffe, this was a title that she had been chasing
for nearly a decade.

Radcliffe produced another magnificent display of courage
and determination, but unlike so many times in the past, when she has been pipped at the
post by faster finishing athletes, the 27-year-old Briton this time prevailed, winning the
women&#146;s senior title at the World Cross-country Championships here in Ostend,
Belgium.

&quot;This is the one I&#146;ve always really
wanted,&quot; Radcliffe said, &quot;ever since I won the junior title in 1992. For me,
winning this is as good as winning the Olympics.&quot;

Yet going into the final 400 metres of the
eight-kilometre race through a bog of a course, with Ethiopia&#146;s Gete Wami looming on
her shoulder, it seemed that the familiar, frustrating story was about to unfold for
Radcliffe once more.

At the track World Championships in Seville in 1999, Wami
had sprinted past the Briton on the last lap, just as her compatriot, Derartu Tulu, had
done in the 1998 World Cross in Turin.

And last year, the two Ethiopians watched Radcliffe set
the pace for 24 of the 25 laps in the Olympic 10,000 metres final before leaving her
struggling home in an agonising fourth place.

Here, it seemed history was about to repeat itself.

The day&#146;s two earlier races had made these boggy
Flanders fields even more of a quagmire by the time of the main event of the day. In
neither the junior women&#146;s race nor the men&#146;s &quot;short&quot;, four-kilometre
event, had the runners set off at the sort of recklessly paced charge normally seen at
these events - the gruelling conditions demanded a steady start.

It meant that forward progress for Radcliffe and her
early rivals, Wami and Merima Denboba, both from Ethiopia, and Kenya&#146;s Lydia Cheromei
was often difficult, as they weaved across the course, sometimes slipping sideways into
one another as they negotiated the tight corners that looped around the Wellington
Hippodrome.

Radcliffe managed to resist her usual tendency to lead
from the starter&#146;s gun. &quot;To win the World Cross-country if you&#146;re leading
all the way is impossible,&quot; she said.

&quot;On this course, you didn&#146;t need to do too
much, the mud was sapping enough as it was. So I waited until after halfway before I tried
to put in some surges. I didn&#146;t want to do to much too early on.&quot;

The lead group was duly whittled down, until the race was
between Radcliffe, Cheromei and Wami going into the final 1,800-metre lap. Radcliffe
clearly made an effort at the start of the lap, and the Kenyan - winner of the world
junior title in Belgium 10 years ago - was first to yield. Still Wami loomed, menacingly.

Into the strong headwind into the long, finishing
straight, Wami moved aside to launch her trademark finishing kick.

&quot;When Gete went past, she didn&#146;t get
away,&quot; Radcliffe said.

&quot;The mud meant that my finishing sprint was not so
good,&quot; Wami, a bemused silver medallist, said.

&quot;I knew I still had a little left,&quot; said
Radcliffe, so I just tried to relax and go again. The crowd was so much behind me, I felt
I couldn&#146;t not win this time.

&quot;I was just thinking when I overtook her again,
&#145;Keep going, keep going, all the way to that tape&#146;, because I didn&#146;t want
what happened to me in Turin to happen again.&quot;

Thus Radcliffe became the first British winner of a
senior World Cross-country title since Zola Budd in 1986, winning $30,000 and a lifetime
satisfaction guarantee. In so doing, Radcliffe, &quot;relieved and excited&quot;, may have
finally nailed the myth that the Africans cannot be beaten over the country.

&quot;I think it&#146;s great to win a race with a sprint
finish,&quot; she laughed.

The victory was only secured in the final 200 yards, but for Paula Radcliffe, this was a title that she had been chasing for nearly a decade.

Radcliffe strikes Gold for Great Britain

by Phil Minshull for IAAF

24 March 2001 - Ostend - With all three of the medallists
from last year&#146;s junior women&#146;s race still eligible and lined up at the start,
it was a fair bet that one of them would triumph but it was the 2000 bronze medallist
Viola Kibiwot who was to master the muddy conditions in Ostend rather than her compatriots
Vivian Cheruiyot and Alice Timbilil, the gold and silver medallists 12 months ago.

&#145;I surprised myself today,&quot; said the 17
year-old schoolgirl, another prodigy from the famous St Patrick&#146;s School production
line of Colm O&#146;Connell.

&quot;I had been running well in our training camp but I
didn&#146;t expect to win. But perhaps our coaches knew something I didn&#146;t because
they told me and Alice Timbilil to go to the front from the halfway point because that was
where we could control the race from,&quot; she added shyly.

The victory also made up for a year of disappointment
since her third place in Portugal. Timbilil and Cheruiyot went to the Sydney Olympics and
others made the trip to the IAAF World Junior Championships in Santiago, but Kibiwot
stayed at home. Ostend was her first destination outside of Kenya since she went to
Vilamoura last March.

&quot;I didn&#146;t make as much progress as I had hoped
last summer. Although I was third ranked Kenyan long distance runner, we could only send
two to the World Junior Championships and so I didn&#146;t get to go. I was unhappy at the
time but it made me determined to do well and qualify for this championship again.&quot;

The race, as has become the norm in recent years, was
dominated by the Kenyan and Ethiopian squads after the Japanese early pace setter Tomoni
Tagao had been reeled in after the opening kilometre.

A group of five Ethiopians and five Kenyans soon detached
themselves from the rest of the field and the race was on to determine which of the Rift
Valley rivals would come out on top with only Australia&#146;s Melissa Rollison and
Tanzania&#146;s Anna Ndege&#151;who were to finish 14th and 15th
eventually&#151;daring to intrude on the private party by staying in close attendance. 

At the halfway point in the 5.9 kilometre race
Kenya&#146;s Fridah Domongole had been doing most of the work, and Kibiwot was later to
admit that she had been designated to make the pace, but then Kibiwot and Cheruiyot took
over at the head of the race as Timbilil had a race she will want to quickly forget and
slipped backwards, ending up 16th.

As the leading pair entered the final kilometre, it
looked as though the Kenyan pair were going dispute the gold medal between themselves but
then in the final few hundred metres the Ethiopians Abebech Negussie and Aster Bacha found
another gear and got up to the shoulder of Kibiwot, who got a two metres advantage on her
fellow Kenyan.

In the final 50 metres it was impossible to predict who
was going to be the new champion but in the closest finish in the 13 editions of the
junior women&#146;s race Kibiwot got the verdict, with the world junior 1,500 metres
champion Negussie being awarded the silver and her team mate Bacha getting the bronze. 

All three were given the same time of 22:05, the first
time ever that a photo-finish has been required to confirm the final placings.

&quot;I didn&#146;t even know the Ethiopians were on my
should until it was too later,&quot; admitted Kibiwot.

Ethiopia though had some compensation as it regained the
team title after a year&#146;s gap, just edging out Kenya by 16 points to 20, as runners
from the two countries filled the first ten places. Winning the race for the rest of the
world was Japan&#146;s Naoko Sakata, who came through strongly in the second half of the
race to finish 11th and lead her country to the team bronze medals for the
fourth consecutive year.

With all three of the medallists from last year’s junior women’s race still eligible and lined up at the start, it was a fair bet that one of them would triumph but it was the 2000 bronze medallist Viola Kibiwot who was to master the muddy conditions in Ostend rather than her compatriots Vivian Cheruiyot and Alice Timbilil, the gold and silver medallists 12 months ago.

Kibiwot surprises herself and the pundits

Sean WallaceJones for IAAF

23 March 2000 &#150; Ostend - Relaxed and smiling after a
day that started in Ifrane, in Morocco&#146;s Atlas mountains at 4.30am, the defending
world champion, Mohammed Mourhit flew into Ostend by helicopter this afternoon in time for
his 3.00 pm rendezvous with the press.

&quot;I got up at 4.30, then drove 65 kilometres to Fez,
took the plane to Casablanca and then another flight to Brussels. I was a little
apprehensive about the helicopter flight from Brussels to Ostend, &quot;he smiled,
&quot;but it went well and was not as bumpy as I thought it would be.&quot;

Mourhit wanted all the chances on his side and that meant
delaying his departure from altitude training in Ifrane, where the Moroccan Federation has
its high level performance centre and Mourhit trains with his brother Hassan and a couple
of friends, until the last possible moment.

&quot;Later this afternoon I am going to take a look at
the course and then I will take an easy run for 35-40 minutes.&quot;

Mourhit believes that he will have his work cut out on
Sunday, when he lines up to defend the title that he won from Paul Tergat in Vilamoura
last year.

&quot;The course is going to be very heavy, very
different from what I have been used to during my training and very different from
Vilamoura. 

&quot;This means that the race will be a lot more
tactical and a lot less speed-dependent. The mud coupled with the cold and the wind is
going to take its toll on everyone and I am going to be racing against the whole Kenyan
team.

&quot;The way that they run their races means that they
will more or less designate a winner among themselves and they are happy to sacrifice
someone on the team by sending them ahead to make the pace for the others.&quot;

A statement supported by the youngster the pundits are
backing as favourite to contest Mourhit&#146;s title defence: 20-year-old John Korir from
Kenya. 

&quot;I am the team captain,&quot; said Korir, who won
the Junior bronze medal at last year&#146;s World Championships and was the surprise
winner in the Kenyan National Championships. 

&quot;It is up to me to really decide what happens during
the race,&quot; he continues. &quot;But whatever happens, we are a strong team, a tough
team and we can handle the conditions.&quot;

Korir grew up in the Rift Valley, in a little town called
Bemot, whose most famous son is a past World Cross Country Champion and world record
holder in the 10,000 metres, William Sigei.

&quot;I know Sigei very well,&quot; recounts Korir,
&quot;he has given me a lot of advice, especially about the mistakes I made when I
competed in the Olympics.

&quot;He is very well known in Bemot and when we were
youngsters and he would pass us in his truck when we were running to school, he used to
shout out to us to follow him and try to catch him up.

&quot;I have always loved to run. I used to run to
school, but I used to try to find a longer way to get there so that I could run more. I
had to get up at six to be at school at seven in the morning, but sometimes I would get up
at 4 a.m. and go for a run before going back home to have some breakfast and then leaving
to run to school as usual!&quot;

Korir has no doubts about the speed and ability of
Mourhit, either.

&quot;Mourhit will really be the driver in this race. He
is also on his home ground so that will help him too. 

&quot;It is going to be a hard course,&quot; continues
Korir who is from the Kipsigis tribe, part of the Kalenjin, &quot;but the course will be
the same for everyone and we have run on mud before.&quot;

Perhaps the greatest strength of the Kenyans, though,
will be in their renowned teamwork, a force to be reckoned with at all times but most
especially when the conditions are as hard as they are shaping up to be over the weekend.

Meantime, Mohammed Mourhit will be looking to renew the
glory that he experienced in Vilamoura: &quot;It has changed a lot for me, both the way I
feel about myself as an athlete, but also the way that other people &#150; especially the
meet managers &#150;treat me. It is a great feeling.&quot; And John Korir will be aiming
to win a prize somewhat more substantial than the first prize he ever won back in 1998:
&quot;It was a cow,&quot; he recalls with a smile. &quot;My very first cow.&quot;

A gold medal on Sunday will bring him the chance to add a
few more cattle to his nascent herd.

Relaxed and smiling after a day that started in Ifrane, in Morocco’s Atlas mountains at 4.30am, the defending world champion, Mohammed Mourhit flew into Ostend by helicopter this afternoon

Defending Champion Mourhit faces head-to-head with Team Kenya

Mark Butler for IAAF

23 March 2001 - The men's world short course cross
country championship here on Saturday will be graced the two runners who between them have
won all three titles so far in this event. John Kibowen (gold in 1998 &amp; 2000) and Ben
Limo (1999) are among the entries, as is Sammy Kipketer, who was a close second last year
in Vilamoura. However, the Kenyan team at the Wellington Hippodrome will be headed by a
man far less experienced, Enock Koech.

It was Koech (20) who won the Kenyan four kilometre trial
race in Nairobi last month, ahead Kibown, Kipketer and Limo. Before that race the tall
(1.85) Nandi was best known as a moderate 1500m runner, having clocked 3:40.5 in the
semi-finals of last year's Kenyan Championships before placing 10th in the final. One
month earlier, he had linked up Jos Hermans' Global group and started training in
Chepkorio under the eye of fellow Nandi Patrick Sang, along with the likes of Richard Limo
and Bernard Barmasai.

In January 2001 he decided to contest the four kilometre
race organised by the Kenyan AAA at the IAAF/IOC Kip Keino High Altitude Training Centre
near Eldoret. A good second place in that race prompted him to enter for the National
Championship in Nairobi on February 24.

&quot;He didn't start fast,&quot; explained Global's
Michel Boeting. &quot;He decided to stay in about 20th place. He was eighth after the
first kilometre, third with a kilometre to go, then sprinted past Kibowen and Kipketer in
the last 400m.&quot;

Even if Koech repeats this win in Ostend, he will stick
to the shorter distances for the rest of the year. &quot;It will be good for him to do
this,&quot; said Boeting. &quot;It seems he has a capacity for distance races. He might be
able to do a good 5000, but he wants to develop at 1500m, which is what he'll do this
summer. Saturday will show us if the Kenyan national result was a one-off.&quot;

Preview of the World Cross Country Championships in Ostend, Belgium

Former winners must watch out for Koech

Phil Minshull for IAAF

23 March 2001 - Ostend - There is an old English music
hall song that begins &#145;Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside,&#146; and although it
is unlikely that many of the 36-strong squad of Kenyan runners who will compete in Ostend
at the 29th IAAF World Cross Country Championships are too familiar with it, by
the end of this coming weekend they are at least likely to share its sentiments.

Kenya will certainly win a lot of medals, some of them
will be gold, around the Wellington Hippodrome on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the
world readily concedes that the only real question is &#145;How Many?&#146; 

Kenyan head coach Dan Muchioki believes that his men and
women can make a clean sweep of the honours, just like they did seven years ago.

&quot;We are capable of winning all the world titles,
just like we did in 1994 in Budapest. I have the strongest cross country squad ever, rich
in depth of talent and experience. Any six of the athletes in the senior men&#146;s race
could be the champion, including Enock Mitei (who will be making his first ever appearance
at the championships), who is as strong as a bulldozer&#151;just like what John Ngugi
was,&quot; commented Muchioki.

The mention of Ngugi brings back memories, not just of
his first triumph in 1986, which set off a chain of 12 victories by Kenyan men in the last
15 championships, but of his win in atrocious conditions three years later in the
Norwegian town of Stavanger when he skimmed through what seemed to most others to be
glutinous calf-deep mud.

The conditions could be similar in Ostend with rain and
wind having battered the Belgian coastal town over the last week but usually little
distracts Kenyan runners from their task in hand. More recently, Paul Tergat conquered
adverse elements in Northern Ireland to win the last of his five consecutive senior
men&#146;s titles in 1999.

Tergat, despite finishing third in the Kenyan trials last
month, has decided to forego these championships but his absence is unlikely to derail the
Kenyan train of success. &quot;People may be wondering what will happen to the Kenyan team
now but I should tell them that another Tergat will be born,&quot; said Kenyan AAA
chairman and IAAF council member Isaiah Kiplagat.

Who the &#145;New Tergat&#146; will be remains open to
speculation. It is an open secret that several of the six-man team will make the pace, and
possibly sacrifice their own chances of an individual gold medal, in order to ensure that
Kenya takes the team title and a fellow Kenyan wins the 12km senior men&#146;s long race
but who will do the front running and who will be the beneficiary remains a closely
guarded secret.

&quot;After a month training together we have chosen who
will be the winner,&quot; said Charles Kamathi, who was seventh last year.

&quot;We all know who is the strongest at this moment and
we all accept the decision but if in the race there are things that are not going so well,
then we can change tactics to help someone else,&quot; added Kamathi.

John Cheruiyot Korir, the junior men&#146;s bronze
medallist 12 months ago, won the Kenyan trials last month and might well be the anointed
one. Korir has also come home in front in some of the fiercely competitive training runs
held during the month long preparation camp at Kaptagat. However, it might also be the
turn of Patrick Ivuti, who has been Tergat&#146;s appointed assistant in the last two
years, while still managing to pick up a silver medal in 1999 and finish fourth last year.
Reports from Kaptagat suggest that Ivuti has bounced back into stunning good shape after
suffering from a mild bout of malaria which restricted him to 30th in the
Kenyan trials.

Although the spotlight inevitably falls on the men&#146;s
12km race, the last race of the weekend, Kenyans will be to the fore in the five other
races. The men&#146;s 4km team includes the winner and runner up from last year, John
Kibowen and Sammy Kipketer. Both men missed out on selection for the Olympics but that has
only succeeded in spurring them on during the winter.

The women&#146;s 8km long race sees Kenya represented by
one of their strongest teams for several years including Lydia Cheromei, who won the world
junior title as a 13-year-old -- and is still the youngest ever winner of an IAAF world
title&#151;the last time the championships were staged in Belgium, when they were held in
Brussels in 1991. Cheromei finished fourth last year and ahead of her in the bronze medal
slot finished Susan Chepkemei, who is also in this year&#146;s team along with Leah Malot,
who finished sixth last year.

The other returnee to Belgium is Margaret Ngotho, who
finished ninth a decade ago and assisted the Kenyan senior women then to their first ever
team title. Ngotho this time around goes in the shorter 4km event.

Kenya has had unrestrained success in junior races in
recent years and it is unlikely to be halted in the Ostend mud.

Both the junior men&#146;s gold and silver medallists
from Vilamoura, Robert Kipchumba and Duncan Kipkorir Lebo&#151;who incidentally filled the
same positions over 10,000 at the IAAF World Junior Championships last October&#151;are
still eligible and continue to run in the junior ranks. However, Muchioki was also telling
people to look out for the much-improved Kiplimo Muneria, who finished 10th in
2000.

The Kenyan junior women can go one better than their male
counterparts and the full medal rostrum from last year&#151;Vivian Cheruiyot, Alice
Timbilil and Jelagat Kibiwot&#151;will be on the start line of the first race of the
championships on Saturday.

With windy weather anticipated in Ostend over the next
few days, it almost certainly be the Kenyan flag that is flying regularly in the gales.

There is an old English music hall song that begins ‘Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside,’ and although it is unlikely that many of the 36-strong squad of Kenyan runners who will compete in Ostend at the 29th IAAF World Cross Country Championships are too familiar with it, by the end of this coming weekend they are at least likely to share its sentiments.

Golden Voyage from Kenya to Ostend

Mud,
Mud, Glorious Mud 
Sean WallaceJones for IAAF

So ran the lyrics of the
hippopotamus song from singing comedians Flanders and Swann. The song continued:
&quot;Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood, so follow me follow me, down to the
hollow, and there we can wallow in glorious mud!&quot;

Well, there wont be any hippopotami on this
weekend&#146;s course in Ostend, but mud there will be &#150; and plenty of it!

Whether it be at the start of the course, in the loops
that criss-cross the race-course of the Wellington Hippodrome &#150; where people&#146;s
thoughts are more likely to be on today&#146;s rubber boots than the Duke of yesteryear
&#150; or at the finish line, the competitors will be able to wallow to their hearts&#146;
content.

Coupled with the mud, entrants will be spending much of the course running
through the long-tufted grass that covers most of the circuit and, in the home straight,
battling against a freezing wind that gusts from the North Sea and blows relentlessly down
the final five hundred metres. Add to this the mild incline that characterises the home
straight and you have a course that is going to try even the strongest of our aspiring
champions.

At 11.30 am yesterday, the on-course
thermometer display was showing 3 degrees centigrade, but the wind chill factor would take
that figure down closer to, or even below, freezing. On the eve of the Championships, the
rain is pouring down and will make going on the relatively well-drained course still
heavier. The Calendar tells us that Spring arrived a couple of days ago, but no-one has
told the meteorological services in Ostend of the change of season. 

Marrakech and Turin, where the World Championships took
place in brilliant sunshine and clement temperatures are but a distant memory.

&nbsp;

So ran the lyrics of the hippopotamus song from singing comedians Flanders and Swann.

Mud Mud Glorious Mud

Steven Downes and SWJ for IAAF

23 March 2001 &#150; Ostend - If Gete Wami, of Ethiopia, is under
any extra pressure to perform well at the IAAF World Cross-country Championships here in
Ostend this weekend, she is certainly not showing it.

Wami, the World Cross champion in 1996 and 1999 and never outside
the first three places in the past five years, heads a small and youthful team from the
Horn of Africa, which is missing the injured Kutre Dulecha, the 2000 champion for the
four-kilometre short race, and Derartu Tulu, who is also injured and unable to defend her
title in Saturday&#146;s eight-kilometre race around the Wellington Hippodrome.

&quot;There are other Tulus in the Ethiopian team,&quot; Wami said
when asked whether there was added pressure on her to match the achievements of her team
mate, the Olympic 10,000 metres gold medallist in Sydney and three-time World Cross
Country Champion.

&quot;There are hundreds and hundreds of Tulus and Wamis in
Ethiopia,&quot; Wami said.

Although only 26 years old herself, Wami, the runner-up in the
Sydney 10,000m final last September, is a veritable veteran alongside her four team mates
entered for Saturday&#146;s race, with two of them - Merima Hashim and Eyerusalem Kuma -
only celebrating their 20th birthdays this year.

Wami took a long rest after the Olympics, and Saturday&#146;s race
is only the second cross-country outing of the winter for her, the first having been the
Ethiopian trials.

But she is in formidable form, having run 14min 49.36sec for an
African indoor 5,000m record last month and plans to capitalise on this by running her
third cross of the season on Sunday, when she plans to take a shot at the women's short
cross (4 km) too.

Stepping out into the cold, wet surrounds of Ostend, though, Wami
is wary. 

&quot;It might be hard for me, because it is so cold,&quot; she
said.

But the woman who managed to show that conditions are no obstacle
to her when she won her second World Cross title in a Belfast bog two years ago said that
the muddy Hippodrome was not a worry for her. &quot;That is what the sport is about,&quot;
Wami said. &quot;It makes no difference to me.&quot;

Wami and her compatriot, Tulu, have often proved to be the
last-lap sprint Nemesis for the hopes of Britain&#146;s front-running Paula Radcliffe,
both on the country and on the track. Yet Wami said that she will be taking seriously the
challenge of every runner on the start line at lunchtime on Saturday. &quot;Whenever an
athlete changes into the racing kit,&quot; Wami said, &quot;you have to assume that they
are not weak or lazy.&quot;

Radcliffe is neither weak nor lazy and is looking forward to
clashing twice with Wami over the weekend.

&quot;I am really on the best form that I could be in,&quot; she
said at a press conference this afternoon. &quot;I have been training in Albuquerque and
everything has been going well.&quot;

But she also refused to make any predictions about the outcome of
the weekend's racing: &quot;In any competition at this level, there are maybe 9-10 really
great athletes on form and of those four or five will be on really great form when the
time comes to race. They are the ones that you have to watch. All that I know is that I am
in the best shape I could possibly be.&quot;

For Tulu, interviewed by phone from Addis Abeba, &quot;Paula
Radliffe could run the best race of her life in Ostend, but the one to watch is Wami. 

&quot;I have never seen anyone finish faster than Gete and I
really think that she will win.&quot;

If Gete Wami, of Ethiopia, is under any extra pressure to perform well at the IAAF World Cross-country Championships here in Ostend this weekend, she is certainly not showing it.

Relaxed Wami to go for double gold

Steven Downes for IAAF

22 March 2001 &#150; If there is one runner who will be
feeling out of place this weekend in Ostend, it will be Ireland&#146;s heroine, Sonia
O&#146;Sullivan.

But any feelings of displacement by being in the Belgian
seaside town, rather than running in her own capital city, are sure to be dispelled once
she toes the start line.

The Olympic 5000 metres silver medallist has been forced
to spend the last two weeks rapidly altering her travel, training and accommodation plans,
after spending her entire winter building up to an attempt to become the first Irish
athlete since John Treacy in Limerick in 1979 to win a World Cross-country title on home
soil.

But precautionary measures to avoid spreading the
outbreak of foot and mouth disease to Ireland&#146;s livestock saw this weekend&#146;s
championships switched from Dublin to Belgium, thus postponing O&#146;Sullivan&#146;s bid
for Irish glory for 12 months - the IAAF Council has already decided that Ireland&#146;s
athletics federation, which has lost around $700,000 on the aborted event, should be
granted another chance to stage the World Cross in 2002.

&quot;After two years of organising the event, it&#146;s
a real pity that this foot and mouth business seems to have come at just the wrong
time,&quot; 31-year-old O &#145;Sullivan said of the decision to switch venues.

&quot;But athletics is not the only sport affected, with
international rugby matches being called off and the horse racing badly affected.

&quot;What we must remember is that it is just sport -
with foot and mouth, many farmers&#146; livelihoods could be affected, so the officials in
Ireland had to be very cautious.&quot;

It seems unlikely this weekend that O&#146;Sullivan will
seek to match her famous double-victory from 1998, when she won both the eight-kilometre
&quot;long&quot; race on the Saturday and then ran and won the new, four-kilometre
short-race on the Sunday in Marrakech, Morocco, the first time that the shorter event had
been included on the World Cross-country programme.

Instead, O&#146;Sullivan will probably just compete in
Sunday&#146;s 4km race in Ostend, hopeful that she will be able to utilise the track speed
that she has been working on while training and racing in Australia this winter, and
honing further at the recent IAAF World Indoor Championships in Lisbon.

O&#146;Sullivan shocked many observers in Lisbon when she
ran in both the 3,000 and 1,500 metres, four demanding races in three days which some
suggested - including the defending champion Gabriela Szabo - was an impossible double.

Yet O&#146;Sullivan defended her decision, saying that
she needed more racing opportunities, and pointing to her Irish indoor record of 8min
44.37sec for seventh place in the thrilling 3000m final, won by Russia&#146;s Olga
Yegorova.

&quot;The world indoors was really just a means to the
end - to sharpen up for the world cross-country,&quot; O&#146;Sullivan said.
&quot;I&#146;d dearly love to win the cross-country title again.&quot;

If there is one runner who will be feeling out of place this weekend in Ostend, it will be Ireland’s heroine, Sonia O’Sullivan.

O'Sullivan aiming to regain title

USA Track &amp; Field announced the Team USA line-ups that will compete at the 29th IAAF World Cross Country Championships March 24-25 in Ostend, Belgium.Team USA will be led by Deena Drossin, Elva Dryer, Cheri Kenah and Collette Liss on the women's side, with Mebrahtom Keflezighi, Abdi Abdirahman Bob Kennedy, Tim Broe and Brad Hauser leading the men's contingent. Athletes earned their places on the U.S. team during a two-day trials competition that mirrored the format used at the World Championships. At the USA Winter Cross Country Nationals February 17-18 in Vancouver, Washington, three championship races were held each day with the top six finishers in each competition qualifying for the trip to Belgium. Women's Team Preview: The U.S. women's long course team will be led by Deena Drossin, who has established herself as the dominant force in U.S. women's cross country. Last month in Vancouver, Drossin won her fourth career long course national title, putting her third on the all-time U.S. Championship list, trailing just Doris Brown (five championships) and three-time world cross country champ Lynn Jennings, who owns an amazing nine U.S. cross country titles. Drossin also won the 4km title at the 2000 USA Winter Nationals in Greensboro, becoming the only woman in history to win the short and long course titles at the same event since the short course race was added in 1999. Although she battled a nagging Achilles injury before the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Drossin ended the 2000 season ranked #1 in the U.S. at 10,000 meters by Track &amp; Field News. Drossin set a new Olympic Trials record of 31:51.05 when she won the race in Sacramento, Calif. She also placed 2nd in the 5,000 meters at the 2000 Trials, ending the year ranked #2 nationally in that event. Drossin also holds the U.S. 5K road record. The women's 4km team will be led by Elva Dryer, who placed second in Vancouver. The 3rd place finisher in the 5000 meters at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials, Dryer finished just ahead of Cheri Kenah in Vancouver. Kenah finished the 2000 season ranked #8 nationally at 1500 meters and #10 at 5000 meters, and was runner-up in the 3,000m at the 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix USA Indoor Track &amp; Field Championships. Collette Liss will also compete in the 4K in Belgium after capturing the 2001 U.S. indoor mile. Liss was the top finishing American in the 4K at last year's World Cross Country Championships, placing 20th in 13:32. The junior women's squad will be led by national champ Laura Zeigle, who placed 3rd at the 2001 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships. A prep at South Jordan (Utah) High School, Zeigle won the 3,200-meter title at the 2001 National Scholastics Indoor Championships. Men's Team Preview The men's 12km team will be led by Mebrahtom Keflezighi, who dominated a talented field in Vancouver in winning his first U.S. cross country title. The 2000 Olympic Trials 10,000 meter champion, Keflezighi went on to finish 12th at the Olympic Games in Sydney. A four-time NCAA champion while at UCLA, Keflezighi was the highest finishing American at the 2000 World Cross Country Championships in the12K (26th - 36:45). Keflezighi's Olympic 10,000 meter teammate Abdi Abdirahman will compete in the 12K in Ostend after placing third at the U.S. Winter Nationals. Abdirahman was third at 10,000 meters at the 2000 Olympic Trials before placing 10th at the Olympic Games. He was 45th at last year's World Cross Country Championships in Vilamoura, Portugal. Also leading the U.S. men's long course squad will be two-time Olympian Bob Kennedy. Kennedy, who in 1992 became the first runner in 32 years to win the NCAA and USA cross country crowns in the same year, is a three-time U.S. 5000 meter champion and the American record holder at that distance. Tim Broe will lead the U.S. team in the 4km competition in Belgium after winning the U.S. title. The 2000 NCAA 3000-meter steeplechase champ, Broe just missed the U.S. Olympic Team last summer when he finished 4th in that event at the Trials in Sacramento. Broe is enjoying the best season of his career, winning the 2001 USA Indoor title at 3,000m on March 3. Assisting Broe in the leadership role will be 2000 Olympian Brad Hauser, who placed 2nd in the 5000 meters at last year's Olympic Trials. Hauser finished 58th in the long course race at the 2000 World Cross Country Championships. Topping the U.S. Junior men's squad is 2001 national champ Matt Tegenkamp of the University of Wisconsin. Tegenkamp will be joined by prep phenom and two-time Foot Locker high school cross country champ Dathan Ritzenhein, who placed 2nd at the Winter Nationals, and Stanford's Ian Dobson, who finished third at Nationals. USA Track &amp; Field for the IAAFUSA Team Roster (Alphabetical) Senior Men 10km Abdi Abdirahman Matthew Downin Greg Jimmerson Meb Keflezighi Bob Kennedy Nick Rogers Senior Men 4km Tim Broe Dan Browne Tony Cosey Andy Downin Brad Hauser Clint Wells Junior Men 8K Fernando Cabada Ian Dobson Matthew Maline Dathan Ritzenhein Josh Spiker Matt Tegenkamp Senior Women 8K Laura Baker Kristin Chisum Deena Drossin Annette Peters Jen Rhines Clare Taylor Senior Women 4K Elva Dryer Lisa Karnoop Nye Cheri Kenah Kris Ihle-Helledy Colette Liss Sarah Schwald Junior Women 6K Emily Blakeslee Victoria Chang Alicia Craig Michelle de la Vina Alisha Williams Laura Zeigle Coaching Staff Men's Head Coach/Chef de Mission: Bill Roe Head Women's Coach: John Babington Junior Men's Coach: Bruce Bickford Junior Women's Coach: Mary Shea

USA Track & Field announced the Team USA line-ups that will compete at the 29th IAAF World Cross Country Championships March 24-25 in Ostend, Belgium. 

WORLD ATHLETICS CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS

Wami wins third cross country title

Bekele draws inspiration from previous winners

American Ritzenhein creates surprise

Mourhit gives best possible reward to Belgium

Historic Double "Double" in Prospect