What does it do? the future looks like cross country, a corner of the sport that is “accepted” and needs to be modernized, but can it continue to play an important role for athletics?
“The short answer is yes,” says Jakob Larsen when asked if he feels there is untapped potential in cross country racing. At its core, the discipline that has been used by many athletes as a cornerstone of endurance running has remained largely unchanged since its inception in the 19th century.
It also remains a mainstay on the calendar, but Larsen, who chaired the organizing committee for the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, believes it is one area of athletics that has been “left behind” for years.
“I think the World Championships and the 1500m are the Blue Riband distances,” he adds. “They are always extremely competitive, very difficult to predict and just plain fun. A lot of cross-country has been taken for granted, and we’ve focused on the functional part of it and less on the fun part. I think it has a future, but we just need to make it fun for more people.”
The winds of change may soon be blowing in this corner of the sport. The campaign to make it an Olympic event for the first time since 1924 has long been established, but has gained new momentum with suggestions that it could be included in the 2030 Winter Games, sharing the same course as cyclocross.
Recently, World Athletics president Seb Coe echoed a point that was also made in Paris last year. “I think there’s a good chance that will happen,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to see an intersection for all kinds of reasons. Some are emotional, but it also gives Africa a proper presence at the Winter Games, which, if we’re honest, doesn’t really happen. Sharing the same course with cyclocross is where our thinking really goes. We have already had good talks.”
Larsen, now head of Product Research and Development at the global governing body, agrees the proposal makes sense. “It’s an interesting idea that could take the intersection in a whole new direction, but we’ll see,” he says. That note of caution was perhaps appropriate given recent comments from Colin Gremslaw, secretary general of the Winter Olympic federations, who appeared to pour cold water on the idea.
The Dane is just happy to see it during the conversation. The topic of innovation is a hot topic in athletics right now, but while road and trail running are going purple and seeing a lot of growth, cross country seems to have been left in the lurch to continue.
“There’s a future (for cross country),” Larsen said. “I definitely see cross country having a lot to offer, but we have to think, ‘How can we make it worthwhile for the people who invest time, money and attention?’ like everything else, it has to adapt to the current day and age.”
Larsen is a man of ideas, and his approach in Aarhus six years ago, with its demanding and innovative course that included running across the roof of a museum, steep ascents and descents, mud pits and fan tunnels, made a big attempt to mix things up. Incorporating a mass participation event into the program was another fresh thought.
There are things Larsen would have done differently if he were in charge again, but the biggest obstacle to building on the momentum that had been set in motion by that event was Covid, meaning the next edition of the World Cross, in Bathurst, Australia, didn’t take place until four years later.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he says, “But I think the sport as a whole probably hasn’t reflected as much on Aarhus and what worked and, to be honest, what didn’t.
“We had several options (of what to do with the course) and we looked at them and said, “This is common. This is boring,’ but (when we started running) on the roof, everyone was just smiling, and I thought, “Well, if everyone’s smiling, it’s probably true.”
Bathurst and the race venue at Mount Panorama also tried to do things a little differently, but the 2023 mess of a late move to Belgrade after original hosts Medulin and Pula in Croatia were found to fall short of expectations didn’t help. Next up is Tallahassee, Florida on January 10, and as revealed in the October issue of AW, creative plans are in the works to make this a memorable edition of the championships for all the right reasons.
And Larsen sees no reason why the event should not attract attention. He sees the world cross in its own category, much like the Paris-Roubaix race, known for its rugged terrain and paved roads, occupies a unique place in the cycling world.
“Sometimes events can actually grow beyond the reach of the sport,” he says. “I tend to compare the World Championships to the Paris-Roubaix cycling race, which probably wouldn’t be invented today, but it’s extremely popular. I think there are a lot of similarities. You probably wouldn’t think of it today, but it transcended the sport and became just an important moment.”
And yet, it doesn’t always attract the “top” athletes. While many of Africa’s biggest names tend to compete, the same cannot be said for other nations. That, Larsen says, is largely due to market forces.
“I think cross country stayed after the sport took off financially,” he says. “You’re basically asking top athletes to choose the cross over the road, knowing they’re likely to give up a decent amount of money, and to me that’s an unreasonable question. This is more of a question.
“Athletes who prioritize cross country now are doing it because some people think it’s good for training, but they’re also doing it because they like it, because their country supports it.
Of course, domestic mass participation in various countries, where elites and masses share the same starting line, has been around for some time, and nowhere is this more prominent than in the UK.
“(Cross country) still has a big following,” said Eamon Martin, Olympian, secretary of the English Cross Country Association and race director of the London meeting, which forms part of the annual UK Athletics Cross Challenge.
“In general, there are a lot of people who run cross-country, and there still seems to be a lot of loyalty to the leagues. The number of league matches is down, but I don’t think it’s because of a lack of appetite, it’s more logistics. It’s getting harder and harder to get stadiums. More and more of them want big money for a sport like cross-country.”
Martin agrees with Larsen that there needs to be some modernization in terms of how the sport operates. The former London Marathon winner is part of the ongoing debate over the future of the UK calendar and is adamant that the cross-country season, which currently runs from October to March, should be shorter to begin with.
“Martin cross-country is not very popular,” he says. “Yes, then English schools and inter-districts are functioning, but people are walking more on the roads. I think we should push the cross country season. It’s popular and I think if we condense it into October-February it’ll have a really good life.
“Some people still want to keep it until the end of March, but I think it’s a long season and a bit unrealistic. And that’s part of why I got heavily involved in that debate, to try to change that. March and April tend to be the general road season where people prepare for the various marathons. Also, the same people who
usually run road races.”
Martin also sees merit in turning around and paying attention to the crowd. He was particularly struck, for example, by what he saw earlier this year behind the ropes on the English national stage at London’s iconic Parliament Hill.
“The national entries were good,” he says. “They weren’t the biggest ever, but the noise, the people there and the number of spectators was huge. In terms of the observatory, it was really, really good.”
Martin will also be the Great Britain team manager at next month’s European Cross Country Championships, an annual end-of-year event that has also seen great success in terms of race format, presentation and quality. Given that the championships began in Britain, Alnwick to be exact, in 1994, and that the nation are prolific medal winners, that it hasn’t been staged on British shores since Edinburgh in 2003 seems odd, to say the least.
It will definitely attract a crowd.
“(With cross country) it always feels like you have the spirit of the place, and to me that’s a really strong advantage,” Larsen says. “Each match is different. It’s really powerful and you can do a lot with it. We just never really thought about it. “Who would think that’s appropriate? How can we share with them? How can we make it easier for them to be a part of that?”
Perhaps now is the perfect time to start asking.
