EYES ON CHAMPIONS: Focus on World Cross as elite field clash in Italy
Olympics
By
JONATHAN KOMEN
| Jan 06, 2017
Olympic champions Faith Chepngétich and Conseslus Kipruto will headline the 60th Campaccio Cross Country race in San Giorgio su Legnano in Italy, the third leg of the IAAF Cross Country Permit series today.
World cross country champion Agnes Tirop, Olympic 5,000m silver medallist Hellen Obiri, defending Campaccio champion Imane Merga and former Campaccio winners Muktar Edris and Albert Rop spice up the line up as campaigns for 42nd IAAF World Cross Country Championships that run in Kampala, Uganda, on March 26, start in earnest.
Jairus Birech, fourth at the Beijing worlds and Diamond Race winner in 2014 and 2015, returns to action after winning Boclassic 10km race on Saturday.
Leonard Patrick Komon, a former world cross country silver medallist and former 10km and 15km world record-holder will be returning to San Giorgia su Legnano, having finished second in 2011.
But Merga, the 2011 world cross-country champion, took a close win in last year’s race, edging Hasin Haji in a thrilling final sprint. Merga achieved another top-three placing in 2014 when he was third behind Rop, who also returns to San Giorgio su Legnano this year.
Rop, the first runner from Bahrain to win in San Giorgio su Legnano, finished seventh in the 5000m at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
A few months after winning the 2012 world U20 5000m title in Barcelona, Edris scored an Italian cross-country double when winning at the Campaccio and Cinque Mulini races in 2013 as a teenager. He went on to take bronze in the junior race at that year’s World Cross Country Championships and two years later he earned the same colour medal in the senior race.
Edris, who won two IAAF Diamond League races over 5000m last summer, showed good shape last Saturday when he won the Boclassic 10km road race in Bolzano, beating Merga by two seconds.
Chepngétich will be making her first Campaccio appearance and will be up against Agnes Tirop, who became the youngest ever senior women’s winner at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships since Zola Budd in 1985 when she won the gold medal in Guiyang in 2015 at the age of 19.
Chepngétich has the world 1500m silver medal; two world junior cross-country titles and has two wins at the Cinque Mulini race, the neighbouring town of San Vittore Olona, under her belt. Last year she also won the Cross de Italica race in Seville.