Biennial World cross-country

echat

Anyone have details on this ? Will it apply to all four races after 2010? Seems hard on juniors as half of them will never get to run at the optimum age. The track & field guys have the Olympics so three big events every four years. Cross-country guys will only have every second year and sooner or later the World cc will go to Africa etc. again where AAI may be less likely to send full teams.

Hard Worker

I think it will be Worlds one year and Europeans the next.

hunnymonster

That sounds sensible HW.


I'm still bitter though. As a kid I was a december bithday and my cousin 3 weeks younger than me a January baby so she always ended up running against girls a year younger than us, and me up to a year older...... I've never forgiven my parents for having a honeymoon baby :-)

Irishathlete_1

they did away with short course 2 years ago. So its one race every 2 years

echat

The World cross is still annual but in Berlin a decision was made to make it every two years:

"The proposal that the World Cross Country Championships should be held every two years alternating with Area championships was approved.
Vote: Yes – 132 No - 22"

Looking at the decision, Hard Worker seems to be spot on realising that the European cross-country is also going to become biennial Going to be harder to motivate guys to keep at it. Big European club events in soccer and rugby are annual and I think there is room for an annual cross-country. Media interest comes and goes and I would not build policy entirely upon that.

thirtyfoot

echat wrote: »

The World cross is still annual but in Berlin a decision was made to make it every two years:

"The proposal that the World Cross Country Championships should be held every two years alternating with Area championships was approved.
Vote: Yes – 132 No - 22"

Looking at the decision, Hard Worker seems to be spot on realising that the European cross-country is also going to become biennial Going to be harder to motivate guys to keep at it. Big European club events in soccer and rugby are annual and I think there is room for an annual cross-country. Media interest comes and goes and I would not build policy entirely upon that.

The world cross is dying and nobody wants to host it. We had the joke in Jordan this year where nobody attended and the LOC had to 'hire' people to come and see it. It costs so much and it has very little appeal compared to world track or obviously the Olympics. I think this is a move towards ensuring the sport can catch up and stay apace and be more attractive to the public that have left us in droves in the last 20 years. You can't say media interest comes and goes, it has gone and athletics is no longer on mainstream TV. We need to make it so that the media and then the general public will be interested in it again. I disagree saying that guys will be demotivated. They will still have a major cross each year and will have two worlds within each Olympic cycle, the same as track. The vast majority of cross guys do track anyway.

myflipflops

Hard Worker wrote: »

I think it will be Worlds one year and Europeans the next.

It would be a shame if the Europeans reverted to every 2 years. Realistically, that's the place to judge our cross country runners.

There is talk of all 'areas' having a cross country championships every 2 years. If this is the case then the de facto World Cross wil stay annual - World Cross one year and African Champs the next.