Zakayo, Kosgei headline season opening Cardiff Cross Country Tour Gold race

Kenya’s 2018 World U20 5000m gold medalist Edward Zakayo will carry the country’s flag at the season opening Cardiff Cross Challenge, a World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold event set to take place on Saturday 15 October 2022 at the twisting and technical course around Llandaff Fields.

In the event, Zakayo will be making his return to cross country after a track season that saw the 2018 Commonwealth Games 5000m bronze medalist finish fourth in the 10,000m at the 2022 Games held in Birmingham.

With the showpiece in the Welsh capital kicking off the Cross Country Tour Gold season, Zakayo will be hoping for a positive start but will face stiff challenge coming from Ugandan duo Joel Ayeko and Rogers Kibet and compatriot Ismael Kurui who has a personal best of 13:26 over 5,000m and a second place at this year’s Kenyan Championships.

Ayeko and Kibet both have great cross country pedigree as the former finished 10th at the last edition of the World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus in 2019.

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The latter achieved top three finishes in Elgoibar, Hannut and Albufeira earlier this year, helping him to place fourth in the 2021/22 Cross Country Tour standings, in which Ayeko finished sixth.

Ethiopia’s Gizealew Abeje Ayana will also be seeking to make his presence felt as he will be returning to Cardiff two weeks after finishing second in the Cardiff Half Marathon in 1:00:16.

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The men’s race will also feature a fierce domestic battle, with Emile Cairess among those in action. Cairess is the joint British record-holder for 10km and was runner up at the English National Cross Country Championships in February, finishing behind Mahamed Mahamed, and the pair will clash again on Saturday.

Mahamed’s brother Zakariya will also be competing and notably won the Northern Ireland International Cross Country in January. Dewi Griffiths and Alex George add further domestic strength to the field.

In the international women’s field who will tackle 6,400m, Kenya’s Pamela Kosgei is among the athletes set to line up at Llandaff Fields.

Kosgei, sister of world marathon record-holder Brigid, won the Kenyan U18 cross country title earlier this year and more recently finished fifth in the 3000m steeplechase at the World Athletics U20 Championships Cali 22. The Cardiff Cross Challenge will be her first World Athletics Cross Country Tour event and also her first race on European soil.

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There will be some strong domestic competition, with Jenny Nesbitt, Kate Avery, Amelia Quirk, Jess Gibbon, Charlotte Dannatt and Megan Keith all racing.

Local athlete Nesbitt was the runner up in Cardiff at the last edition and finished 10th at the European Cross Country Championships in Dublin last December, one place ahead of Gibbon.

Avery is another prolific cross country performer and claimed European silver in 2015, while Keith was the U20 winner in Cardiff 12 months ago and moves to the senior race this time as the reigning European U20 champion.

Additional reporting by World Athletics