Bathurst 2023: Kamworor leads a strong Kenyan contigent

The senior men's 10km race at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst will be held on Saturday 18 at Mount Panorama, one of Australia's most famous sporting venues, and will definetely be a jaw-dropping clash.

It will not only rekindle long-dormant local rivalries, but also international rivalries. There is a defending champion, a two-time winner, a world half marathon champion, and Olympic and World gold medalists in this category.

The top three from the previous edition in Aarhus in 2019 are present: Joshua Cheptegei, his fellow Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished second four years ago, and Kenya's two-time champion Geoffrey Kamworor.

The 30-year-old will put his past injury struggles behind him and look to reclaim the title. Kamworor won the U20 world cross-country title in Punta Umbria in 2011 before going on to win the senior title in Guiyang in 2015 and Kampala in 2017.

The three-time world half marathon champion won the National Police Service Cross Country Championships in January, beating out Commonwealth 10,000m silver medalist Daniel Simiu Ebenyo, and he has repeatedly demonstrated that he thrives on the big stage.

Kenya has a strong chance to win the senior men's team title for the first time since 2011, with the former world, half marathon record-holder Kibiwott Kandie, Sebastian Kimaru Sawe, and Olympic and world 5000m finalist Kipkorir joining Kamworor in the Kenyan squad.

Other Kenyans who will compete are Olympians Nicholas Kimeli and Daniel Kiprop.

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Ugandans Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo

For Cheptegei, Bathurst presents him with an opportunity to imitate the ways of stars such as Kamworor, Ethiopian great Kenenisa Bekele, and official event ambassador Paul Tergat. Bekele and Tergat have achieved the feat multiple times by becoming back-to-back winners of the senior men’s title.

He will also be motivated by the loss he suffered at the championships in Kampala in 2017 when he finished 30th. Despite that, he bounced back to winning ways two years later, winning his first world cross-country title. He would continue to win the world 10,000m silver in 2017 and two Commonwealth Games titles in 2018.

Since then, he has won Olympic and world titles in the 5000m in Tokyo and the 10,000m in Doha and Oregon, as well as setting world records in both disciplines.

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Cheptegei, like Kamworor, is from recovering from an injury he picked in 2022. He made a comeback late last year, winning a 10km race in Madrid in 27:09, and has been training for the World Cross Country Championships since then.

He is Joined by Kiplimo, who has individual gold medal ambitions of his own. Two years after becoming Uganda’s first-ever World Cross Country Championships gold medallist thanks to his U20 win on home soil, Kiplimo missed the senior title by just four seconds in Aarhus.

Just like Cheptegei, he has been speedily rising, winning the world half marathon in 2020 before claiming Olympic and world bronze in the 10,000m before completing a 5,000m and 10,000m double at the Commonwealth Games.

2019 U20 ninth-place finisher Samuel Kibet and 19-year-old Rogers Kibet, who placed in the top three at four World Cross Country Tour Gold meetings last year, will all be aiming at another team medal.

Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega

Leading Ethiopia is Selemon Barega, who is fresh from a win at the Elgoibar Juan Muguerza Cross Country. Barega made world finals in the 5000m and 10,000m in Oregon and then finished second in the Great North Run half marathon in September.In his World Cross career, he has two fifth-place finishes: one in the senior race in 2019 and one in the U20 event in 2017.

Another athlete to keep an eye on is Berihu Aregawi. The 21-year-old, who finished fourth in the Olympic 10,000m final in Tokyo, won the Jan Meda Cross Country in Sululta at the start of the year, Ethiopia's trial race for Bathurst, and will be making his World Cross Country Championships debut.

In that trial race, Getaneh Molla finished third, Mogos Tuemay fourth, and Hailemariyam Amare sixth, and they all join Aregawi and Barega in the Ethiopian team.

World Athletics member federations that are set to field athletes include Spain, the United States, Australia, the Marshall Islands, and the Solomon Islands among others.