Cross Country, the Once and Future Olympic Sport

Cross-country running is going to be in the Winter Olympics!

Well, maybe not.

These seem to be the facts. The movement started with distance runners Haile Gebreselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, and Paul Tergat. The trio drafted a letter setting out the case that cross-country running, an ancient and beautiful sport, should return to the Olympic Games after being absent since 1924. Copies of the letter went to the president of the International Olympic Committee (Jacques Rogge) and the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (Lamine Diack).

AN OPEN LETTER to the

President of the IOC, Mr. Jacques Rogge and president of the IAAF, Mr. Lamine Diack

We the undersigned global champions and record breakers would like to invite your two highly esteemed federations to consider the re-introduction of cross country running into the Olympic Games programme, either as a summer or a winter sport.

Cross country running is of course the most natural, indeed elemental of all sports. It is a fascinating discipline whose roots are lost in the earliest history of mankind.

In the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, cross country running was so far seen for the last time with the victory of one of the greatest ever Olympians, Finland’s Paavo Nurmi.

The official report at the time noted that a combination of unseasonal hot weather and the effects of the heat of a near-by industrial chimney - yes we had global warming in those days too! - meant that the air temperature on the course was as high as 36 degrees Centigrade (96.8 Fahrenheit). As such, of the 38 starts, 23 failed to finish. The problems of 1924 were certainly unique.

So we humbly and respectfully ask, what is your opinion about returning cross country running to a future Olympic Games, either on the programme of a summer or winter celebration?

We think it would be wonderful to give the worlds best cross country runners the chance to compete in the greatest of all sporting festivals, and are hopeful of a positive response.

Yours in sport,

Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Paul Tergat

Diack was enthusiastic about seeing another IAAF sport added to the Olympics, but Rogge was not so warm to the idea. Somehow the focus has come to be the Winter Olympics, and the IOC's position was that Winter Olympic events had to be those contested on ice and snow. Later reports had Rogge more open to the idea, but indications were that representatives of winter sports already on the Olympic program would be less than friendly to the proposal. Meanwhile, cross country will certainly not be in the 2010 Winter Olympics (Vancouver), but could possibly be added to the 2014 games (Sochi). Given the fate of softball, I'm not optimistic.

Aside from its history as an Olympic event until 1924, cross country has had a toehold in the summer games from 1912 to 2008 as part of the Modern Pentathlon, a bizarre contest involving fencing, horseback riding, swimming, pistol shooting, and a 3 km cross-country run. However, following the 2008 Olympics (Beijing), the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne decided to combine the running and shooting events (but not to change the name of the contest to the tetrathlon). While Diack and the three distance-running greats were trying to add cross-country running to the Olympics, it was quietly being removed.

But it's not like cross country really needs the Olympics. This weekend, the 2009 World Cross-Country Championships will be held in Amman, Jordan. This is billed as the 37th annual championships, but actually goes back to 1903 as the International Cross-Country Championships (although until 1907, the "nations" were limited to England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland). Whichever date you use, cross-country world meet is older than track-and-field's, and nearly as old as the modern Olympics. The 2009 World Cross-Country Championship also has one thing that no Olympic event has--US$280,000 in prize money.

I'm not saying that adding cross country to the Winter Olympics is a bad idea. Actually, the weather being what it is at the summer games, I'd like to see the marathon moved to the Winter Olympics program. Maybe some other road running events, too. Indoor track, anyone? But if cross country doesn't join curling as a Winter Olympic sport, it will be no great tragedy for cross country.

Links:

• Athletics legends want cross-country back in the Olympics
  http://www.insidethegames.com/show-news.php?id=3534


• Diack supports inclusion of cross country in the Olympics
  http://www.insidethegames.com/show-news.php?id=4225


• Sochi Olympics could host cross country running
  http://www.insidethegames.com/show-news.php?id=5298