Lucy Mawia (centre) at the Cross Internacional de Soria (© Cross Internacional de Soria)
The World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold heads to Poland on Sunday (23) when the Cross Country Bydgoszcz na Start will welcome some of the sport’s leading specialists.
Kenya’s Lucy Mawia, who finished second overall in last season’s Tour, contests the women’s 6km race, while Uganda’s Joel Ayeko continues his campaign by racing the men’s 8km event in a city that has twice hosted the World Cross Country Championships.
After finishing second in the 2021/22 Cross Country Tour, Mawia went on to race on the track and road, improving her PBs at a range of distances from 1500m to the half marathon, for which she clocked 1:09:38 in Udine last month.
She most recently finished fifth in the Pisa Half Marathon on 9 October and now returns to cross country competition for the first time since March.
Among those joining her in Bydgoszcz are her compatriots Maureen Cherotich and Lilian Jepkemboi Lelei, plus Ethiopia’s Tsiyon Abebe and Czech Republic’s Moira Stewartova.
Cherotich competed at the last two editions of the World Athletics U20 Championships, finishing seventh in the 5000m in Cali in August and sixth in Nairobi last year. The 18-year-old now switches her attention to cross country, lining up alongside Lelei, who like Mawia competed at the Italian Cross Country Championships in March. Lelei competes in Bydgoszcz after a busy period of road racing that included a second place finish in the Zagreb Half Marathon on 1 October and sixth place in the Pisa Half Marathon eight days later.
Aged just 16, Abebe claimed world 3000m U20 silver in Cali and races for the first time since then in Bydgoszcz, while Stewartova, who competed at the 2019 World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, returns to cross country action after finishing 40th in the European Championships marathon and then winning the Czech 10km title last month.
Polish 5000m champion Angelika Mach was 19th in that European Championships marathon and competes on home soil, while Ukraine’s Viktoriia Kaliuzhna and Marina Nemchenko are also in the elite field.
A week after finishing second to Edward Zakayo at the first Gold event of this season’s World Athletics Cross Country Tour in Cardiff, Ayeko is back in action and will be looking to go one better in the men’s race.
The 30-year-old, who finished 10th at the World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, was sixth overall at the end of last season’s Tour and this time faces Bahrain’s Birhanu Balew and Kenya’s Levy Kibet in the 8km contest.
Olympic 5000m sixth-place finisher Balew recently raced over 10km in Trieste where he clocked 28:57, while 19-year-old Kibet, who claimed world U20 5000m bronze last year, finished second in last season’s Cross Country Tour races in San Vittore Olona and Rovereto before improving his 5000m PB to 13:01.32 in Rome and 5km best to 13:02 in Herzogenaurach.
Kibet is joined by his Kenyan compatriots Cosmas Kyeva and Boniface Nduva, while national 3000m steeplechase champion Mikolaj Czeronek, two-time national 10,000m champion Tomasz Grycko and Szymon Kulka are among the domestic entries.
The Cross Country Bydgoszcz na Start forms part of the World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold for the first time but Myslecinek Park hosted the World Cross Country Championships in 2010 and then again in 2013.
The women's race starts at 11:00am local time and the men's race at 11:50am.
