Sergiy Lebid signals his fifth championship win - 2004 Euro XC (© Hasse Sjögren)
Tilburg, The NetherlandsAs European athletics attention turns to this weekend’s SPAR European Cross Country Championships (Sun 11 Dec), two intriguing questions immediately come to mind -
The first: can anyone stop the Ukrainian juggernaut Sergey Lebid, the continent’s undisputed cross country King? And the second: with a solid women’s field gathered, can Briton Hayley Yelling become the first woman ever to successfully defend her title? Those questions will be answered Sunday afternoon when the gun sounds for the championships’ 12th edition at the Leijpark in Tilburg, Netherlands.
Men’s race
In the men’s contest, the focus will clearly be on halting Lebid’s unprecedented win streak at four golds. Indeed, if there’s anything in the least a bit predictable about the continent’s Cross Country Championships, it’s that the 30-year-old Ukrainian, who in total has five titles to his name (1998 + 2001-04), and a silver (2000) and bronze (1997) for good measure, to will arrive on the start line extremely well prepared.
As was the case prior to the previous four editions, Lebid will arrive on the scene on the heels of a high-altitude training stint, this time in the Caucasus Mountains in Kislovodsk, Russia. After winning his fourth consecutive – and fifth overall - title last December in Heringsdorf, Germany, a lack of racing sharpness obviously didn’t dull the Ukrainian’s racing ability. In the German Baltic coast town, he won handily by a whopping 26 seconds, the largest victory margin of his four straight wins, and breaking his tie with Portugal’s Paulo Guerra for the most wins.
Two-time defending silver medallist Juan Carlos de la Ossa leads a strong Spanish team, trying once again to knock Ledid from the top of the podium, and leading his team back onto the podium after a fourth place finish last year. One of the top all-around Spanish distance runners in 2005, de la Ossa suffered a minor ankle injury that cut into his early season racing programme, which might have an impact here. In his few racing appearances this autumn, the 29-year-old was third at the Cross Internacional Castellano-Manchego in Quintanar de la Orden, Spain on 6 November, and sixth at the Cross Internacional Valle de Llodio in Llodio, Spain less than two weeks ago.
Defending bronze medallist Driss Maazouzi returns to lead a French squad that is seeking its third consecutive team gold. Fresh from his own six week training stint at altitude in Ifrane, Morocco, where he was pounding out 160Km per week with a group of marathoners, the 36-year-old resumed competition with a runner-up finish to Bahraini Adam Ismael at the Cross du Main Libre in Allonnes on 19 November. For Maazouzi, the 2003 World Indoor champion at 1500 metres, it was a shift in training, coinciding with his plans to move up to the 5000 in 2006, and a move that bodes well as he tries to become the first Frenchman to cross the line first.
Gabriele De Nard and Daniele Caimmi will lead the Italian team, who return as the reigning silver medallists. Gert-Jan Liefers, who was the junior winner in the inaugural edition in 1994, will be leading the host team.
Women’s Race
Last year, Briton Hayley Yelling took the title in a tantalizingly close sprint finish. But if history is a fair barometer, her task to defend is a daunting one. No woman has ever successfully defended, and only Paula Radcliffe, the winner in 1998 and 2003, has raced to victory more than once.
On paper, the woman to beat seems to be Aniko Kalovics of Hungary, who has yet again proved to be the primary European cross country force in the early part of the season. The 28-year-old brings the momentum from two consecutive wins to Tilburg: In Llodio two weeks ago she beat a solid international field, two weeks after winning the Cross International ABAB Warandeloop, also held in Tilburg. In early October, she set a national record for 10 Miles on the road with her third place finish at the BUPA Great South Run. In each race, she handily dispatched with Yelling. In 2003, Kalovics finished third behind Radcliffe and Turkey’s Elvan Abeylegesse, but faltered last year. A pre-race favourite, Kalovics, a self-professed "poor" hill runner, finished a distant eighth over the challenging course in Heringsdorf. The flat Tilburg race route should be much more to her liking.
Justyna Bak of Poland is another threat. The bronze medallist in 2001 and silver medallist last year, the Warsaw native will be eager to complete her collection of medals in Tilburg. Bak has raced well this autumn, finishing fourth in Quintanar de la Orden and third in Llodio.
Olivera Jevtic of Serbia & Montenegro will also use her Tilburg appearance to gauge her return from injury. Since winning her fourth consecutive bronze medal in 2000, Jevtic has turned her attentions to the marathon, where she's found considerable success, most notably with her 2:25:23 personal best to win at Rotterdam in 2003.
While the championships are an early season test for most, Sunday's contest will actually extend Swede Johanna Nilsson's season by a few weeks. Competing for Northern Arizona University, the 21-year-old ran to a powerful win at the NCAA Championships on 21 November. Nilsson, whose university coach John Hayes described as being "phenomenal shape," will make just her second appearance at the continental championships. In 2000, she was on Sweden's junior team that finished third, the last time the Swedes reached the podium.
Ines Monteiro and Analia Rosa, seventh and 10th last year, lead the Portuguese squad, the reigning team champions. Both have had a pair of notable outings in their Tilburg lead-up.
Junior Races
Last year, Hungary’s Barnabás Bene upset two-time defending junior men’s champion Yevgeniy Rybakov of Russia. This year he returns in an attempt to emulate the Russian's feat to become just the second two-time junior winner. He'll be expecting company from Turkey’s Mugdat Öztürk and Stepan Rogovtsev of Belarus, who finished 1-2 in the 10,000 metres at the European Junior Championships in Kaunas last summer.
The women's race will feature at least one returning member of last year's podium trio, Marta Romo of Spain. In Heringsdorf, the young Spaniard, who will celebrate her 18th birthday on Christmas day, raced to a bronze medal. Ancuta Bobocel, the defending silver medallist, is a question mark at the moment. Hobbled by injury, the Romanian hasn't raced since her second place finish in the 3000m Steeplechase in Kaunas. Great Britain’s Emily Pidgeon, who won the European junior 5000m title last summer as a 16-year-old, will also be the focus of considerable attention. Last March, Pidgeon was 20th in the junior race at the World Cross Country Championships.
Schedule
Competition gets underway at noon on Sunday (11 Dec) with the junior women's 4.83km race, followed by the junior men (6.5km) at 12:30. The gun for the senior women's 6.5km race will sound at 1:50 p.m., with the senior men (9.84km) at 2:30 p.m.
Live, delay and highlight coverage of the race will be broadcast by Eurosport, the BBC, Belgium's BVRT, Spain's TVE, France 2 and 3, ERT in Greece, Ireland's RTE, Italy's RAI, NOS in The Netherlands, RTP in Portugal and Russia's RTR.
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
