Flashes of Panic

…We hardly knew ye.

(I’ve filed three stories on this weekend’s USATF XC championships, and this topic didn’t fit any of them, so here you go.)

Less than ten years ago, the IAAF had the bright idea of expanding the World Cross Country Championships, which was at the time known widely as the single most competitive annual race on the calendar—and where Kenyan teams had been so dominant for so long they actually set records for one of the longest streaks in sports. (Not just running: sports.) The idea was to make the World Cross less of a distance specialty event by bringing in the milers and steeplechasers. Instead of four races on one day (two juniors, two seniors,) the IAAF divided the senior division into “short course” 4K races and “long course” races (8K for women, 12K for men.)

I was not thrilled with this idea when it launched. For one thing, at the time the addition of the “short course” race was a pretty transparent attempt to draw Moroccan mile star Hicham El Guerrouj out for cross country. (In this regard, it failed.) I also thought it was likely to dilute the prestige of the World Cross; at the time, Paul Tergat (now the marathon world record holder) was working on a historic winning streak which gave him immense credibility as a rival to Ethiopian superstar Haile Gebrselassie.

I wasn’t the only one. Adam Goucher, who won the 4K at the USATF meet in ‘99 and ‘00 (then returned to win it again on Saturday) told us that he didn’t think the 4K got much respect at first. The fields weren’t terribly deep, he figured, and certainly the names that turned out to contest the 12K have traditionally been bigger. At the international level, the first few men’s races were won by unheralded and essentially forgettable Kenyans sprinting out of the pack in the closing stages of the race. It’s a merciless race, where the field (usually in excess of 100 at the World Cross) takes off at full stride and does nothing but hammer to the finish, with only seconds separating those who make the team (or medal) and those who don’t, and a poor start, bad corner, or sticky mud-patch can mean the difference between fifth and fifteenth.

The tweak came when Sonia O’Sullivan won first the long-course race in Marrakech, then doubled back the following day to take the short course as well. It was a hint of what was to come. Starting in 2002, when Kenenisa Bekele became the first (and, so far, only) male to win the double, the short course race became a way for the long-course winners to add an exclamation point to their wins, like Emil Zatopek’s marathon in Helsinki, or pretty nearly anything Paavo Nurmi did in Paris. Tirunesh Dibaba doubled last year, then came back for a Zatopek-like five-and-dime double at the Helsinki world championships that even Bekele has yet to manage.

Meanwhile, the US trials have become more competitive at 4K, and there’s a chance that this year’s men’s short-course team might be stronger than the long-course team. Maybe short course will be how we finally manage a team medal for the men? Our women have picked up a few short-course team medals already, as well as one (in 2002, when Deena Kastor and Colleen De Reuck finished 2-3) in the long course.

Lately, the IAAF has decided that perhaps the short course wasn’t such a great idea after all. El Guerrouj never came out, and the short course became “just” another venue for East African dominance, albeit now Ethiopian rather than Kenyan. So this year will be the last year of the short course, may it go out with a bang.

Dropping the second race will have a lot of positive effects. For one thing, it will make the U.S. nationals a one-day meet again, and significantly less expensive to host. It will halve the number of people who can make a Worlds team, hopefully making that a more desirable goal and the long-course into a more competitive race. Cross country and indoor track will be less likely to cannibalize athletes from each others’ national and world championships.

But I may actually miss it a bit.

Now Playing: One More Song The Radio Won’t Like from Failer by Kathleen Edwards