Benjamin Limo on his way to the 1999 World XC short course title (© Getty Images)
Kenya’s Benjamin Limo, 2003 World Cross Country short race bronze medallist will head a powerful group of African athletes in the ‘10th Cross Internacional de Soria’ - EAA Permit – this Sunday 23 November.
Limo, 29, who won the short course race in 1999 and also took the World 5000m track silver medal in the same year, has for the last five seasons run under 13 minutes for 5000m on the track. Though he failed to make the Kenyan team for Paris he was one of the strongest in the world this season but he may find Sunday's distance of 9000m a bit too long for him.
Limo will take on Tanzania’s Fabian Joseph who snatched silver at the recent IAAF World Half Marathon championships in Vilamoura. Joseph, who is only 17, will be the youngest in this Sunday’s field by far, and a hot favourite to win.
Eritrean Tadesse Zersenay will also be in this high calibre line-up. The Madrid-based athlete made a huge breakthrough last season by placing in the top ten in three IAAF World Championships - 9th in Lausanne (long race) in March; 8th place in a National record of 13:05.57 in an unforgettable Paris 5000m final in August; seventh at the Half Marathon in October (PB of 61.26).
Two other top ten runners from Lausanne will be in action, Kenya’s Thomas Kiplitany fifth in the short race and Morocco’s Hicham Chatt who placed eight in the long event.
The experienced Portuguese pair of Eduardo Henriques and Paulo Guerra, along with Kenya’s John Korir (61:00 Half Marathon PB) will try to surprise the favourites.
Local threat
The Spanish armada should also threaten. Having clinched the European Cross Country team title in the last two years, the Spaniards will bid for a hat-trick of victories on 14 December 14 in Edinburgh (UK), and so Sunday’s race could well be regarded as a dress-rehearsal.
The Spanish start list comprises three world-class steeplechasers, Paris bronze medallist Eliseo Martín, José Luis Blanco, eighth on that occasion, and European champion Antonio Jiménez. But the real danger could come from two other distance runers of note, the 2002 European bronze medallists José Ríos (10,000m) and Fabián Roncero (Cross Country).
In addition, Jesús España, who came 4th at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham last March over 3000m, 1998 European 5000m champion Isaac Viciosa, and Enrique Molina will also be in the fight.
Women's Race
The women will race over 6000m, on what is expected to be a dry grass course. The undisputed star will be Ethiopia’s Merima Denboba who raced cross country three times last year on Spanish soil.
After a lacklustre summer season on the track – she missed the Paris Worlds – Denboba comes back to her favourite surface, cross country, on which she has amassed six World team gold medals. The 29-year-old Ethiopian helped her country to the World long course title in Lausanne last March, taking the individual bronze medal behind compatriot Werknesh Kidane’s winning performance in the process.
Denboba, fresh from her win at the first IAAF permit race last Sunday in Oeiras, Portugal, will be fiercely challenged by a large Kenyan contingent topped by Magdaline Chemjor (fifth, Lausanne World XC). The previously unheralded Chemjor will be accompanied by 1997 World 10,000m champion Sally Barsosio, 25, who will battle to repeat her 1994 win here in Soria.
1999 World short race cross country champion Jackline Maranga will also be in contention, while last year’s winner Zulema Fuentes-Pila is the main hope among the Spaniards.
