Nadia Battocletti wins the Campaccio women's 6km (© Sportmedia.es/Campaccio)
Nadia Battocletti returns to defend her Campaccio crown but she faces 2024 champion Francine Niyomukunzi who will look to regain the title when the World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold meeting takes place in San Giorgio su Legnano on Sunday (25).
Celestin Ndikumana was second in the men’s race last year and he is also back in Italy, looking to go one better this weekend.
Last year Olympic and world medallist Battocletti became the first Italian winner at Campaccio in 31 years, covering the 6km course in 21:14 to triumph by 44 seconds.
This time she heads to San Giorgio su Legnano off the back of two wins in December – one at the European Cross Country Championships in Lagoa and the other over 5km at the BOclassic in Bolzano. Prior to that she won the Cross Country Tour Gold meeting in Atapuerca and was second in Alcobendas.
Burundi’s Niyomukunzi will be looking to deny her another win on home soil, to regain the Campaccio title she won for the first time two years ago. On that occasion the 26-year-old clocked 19:42 to beat Battocletti by four seconds, but the pair also met at Campaccio in 2023, when Battocletti finished fourth, two seconds and one place ahead of Niyomukunzi.
Last year Niyomukunzi won the Cross Country Tour Gold event in Albufeira and she was third in Elgoibar at the start of the year.
They will be joined by Elvanie Nimbona, who finished third in the Cinque Mulini in November, plus Micheline Niyomahoro, who finished fourth at Campaccio last year.
Italy’s Adele Roatta and Lucia Arnoldo also finished in the top 10 last year and return, Arnoldo now with a seventh-place finish in the vertical uphill race at the World Mountain & Trail Running Championships in Canfranc-Pirineos to her name.
In the men’s 10km race, two athletes who finished in the top four last year will battle again. Burundi’s Ndikumana was second and Tunisia’s Olympic steeplechase fourth-place finisher Mohamed Amin Jhinaoui was fourth and they both race again as part of a field that also features Kenya’s Matthew Kipkoech Kipruto, Uganda’s Dolphine Chelimo, Rwanda’s Yves Nimubona, Burundi’s Emile Hafashimana and Ethiopia's Abrham Sime.
Kipruto makes his Campaccio debut after finishing third, second and then first respectively in Cross Country Tour Gold races in Soria, San Vittore Olona and Eldoret in the last couple of months of 2025.
Chelimo secured seventh place at the World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee earlier this month, while Nimubona finished third at Campaccio in 2024.
Other top 10 finishers last year who are returning are Hafashimana who was sixth last year and his compatriot Egide Ntakarutimana who placed 10th, plus Italy’s Luca Alfieri who was eighth.
Jebet defends in Hannut
Kenya’s Sheila Jebet will face Uganda’s world U20 cross-country medallist Charity Cherop when she returns to defend her title at the Cross Cup de Hannut, a World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold meeting, on Sunday (25).
The pair will renew their rivalry over 8km after their respective first- and third-place finishes in Hannut last year. Jebet went on to claim three second-place finishes and a third place in Cross Country Tour Gold races in November – in Cardiff, Soria, Atapuerca and Alcobendas – while Cherop focused on the track.
They have both raced once so far this year, 18-year-old Cherop opening her season at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee where she clinched a historic bronze medal in the U20 race and 20-year-old Jebet finishing second in the Cross Country Tour Gold event in Elgoibar last weekend.
That performance saw Cherop become Uganda's first ever women's individual medallist at the World Cross Country Championships and she was joined on her nation’s team gold medal-winning squad by Bentalin Yeko who finished seventh and also races in Hannut.
Belgium won the senior women’s team title at the European Cross Country Championships in Lagoa last month and team members Jana Van Lent, who finished fourth, and Lisa Rooms, who was fifth, will race on home soil in Hannut.
Kenya’s 20-year-old Keneth Kiprop heads to Hannut to contest the senior men’s 8km race, two weeks on from finishing 10th at the World Cross Country Championships.
He faces Eritrea’s 18-year-old Saymon Amanuel who was runner-up in Elgoibar last weekend and finished first and second respectively at the Cinque Mulini and in Alcobendas in November, plus Uganda’s Martin Kiprotich who finished second in the mountain classic race at the World Mountain & Trail Running Championships in September.
Milkesa Fikadu helped Ethiopia to bronze in the mixed relay at the World Cross Country Championships and he steps up in distance to race in Hannut.
Belgium’s Cross Cup leader Guillaume Grimard finished fifth in Hannut in 2024 and returns, as does Luxembourg’s Ruben Querinjean, the 3000m steeplechase specialist who was sixth last year and placed seventh at the European Cross Country Championships.
Other steeplechasers in action are Germany’s Frederik Ruppert, who won the Diamond League title last year, and Belgian champion Tim Van de Velde.
