Sunday, August 08, 2010

Cross Country in the Olympic Games


From IAAF website and the following link:
http://www.iaaf.org/aboutiaaf/news/newsid=57913.html
As requested by the International Olympic Committee, the IAAF has prepared and submitted a Questionnaire concerning the Review of the 2018 Winter Olympic Programme to include Cross Country Running (following the original request from leading cross country athletes like Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie). 

The IOC Programme Commission will study the document in August 2010 and come back to IAAF, if necessary, for further clarifications before submitting it to the IOC Executive Board, for decision.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

How awesome would this be? It would be super interesting to see how the Africans fare in the cold weather compared to Westerners more accustomed to frigid temperatures.

Kevin Liao
Spiked Up, Psyched Up | A Track & Field Blog
spikeduppsychedup.com
twitter.com/spikeduppsyched

XC Fan said...

Oh, I bet they'll do just fine. But we shall see, hopefully.

Marcos Hinojosa said...

Wait when it says 2018 does that mean they are considering the sport for the winter

Anonymous said...

winter games...if that where it needs to be to get in so be it.

Kevin Liao said...

It makes sense that it would be in the Winter Games since cross country is traditionally run in the fall domestically and around March for World Cross.

It also wouldn't work for the Summer Olympics since it would interfere with athletes doing the events on the track or the marathon.

Coach Small said...

I am sure African runners will do fine in the winter games. Often the XC champs are held in cold places. John Ngugi (KEN), won on of his five world championships in Boston with snow on the ground. I've seen Tergat run much better in cold conditions than in hot (remember Athens?) as well.

I think cross country deserves to be an olympic event and should come back to the Olympics (it was dropped in 1924). As we all know XC is much different than track, and while Ngugi, Tergat and Bekele have dominated on the track as well "The Emperior" himself (That's Geb for you young guys) never won a title. The questions is, will they go multiple events or keep it at just the 12k?

Of course it has to get back into the Olympics first...

Albert Caruana said...

Most exciting part is that we would get to see runners from different events face each other in an Olympic setting...even if it's winter.

Peter Brewer said...

I'd love to see the current format just dropped whole into the Olympics: short course, long course, juniors, seniors - - the more distance running, the better. If we can watch horses with braids prance over fences, or skiers shooting at targets, we can certainly watch highly skilled athletes compete at endurance events.

Peter Brewer
Northgate High

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