Twice is Nice: Beatrice Chebet and Jacob Kiplimo Repeat as World Cross Country Champions
The Serbian capital of Belgrade witnessed Beatrice Chebet and Jacob Kiplimo repeat as World Cross Country champions last weekend in unseasonably warm weather. While the competition may have been bookended with Ethiopian and Ugandan wins, Kenya was by far the strongest force of the day, winning most of the individual and team titles on offer.
Be that as it may, Ethiopia might not have to wait long before they are able to challenge their Kenyan rivals. 15-year-old Marta Alemayo led an Ethiopian sweep of the medals in the opening race to secure the junior women’s title in what was her country’s only individual and team title of the day. Alemayo is eligible to race as a junior for the next four years, but it’s still a promising sign for a nation whose women were totally outclassed in the senior race.
Meanwhile, Samuel Kibathi produced a well-timed kick to win by one second in the junior men’s race and take home Kenya’s first gold of the day. The country followed that performance with a successful retention of their mixed relay title, with a one-shoed Birri Abera anchoring an Ethiopian silver. A surprisingly strong run by Great Britain’s Adam Fogg and Bethan Morley brought their team from the back of the field into the bronze medal position before the world turned their attention to the two most important races of the day: the men’s and women’s World Cross Country Championships.
Elite Women
Kenyan women own cross country at the moment. And thanks to Beatrice Chebet’s win in Belgrade last weekend, the country has now held the world title for 15 consecutive years. Not only has Kenya’s top seed been dominant for so many years, but their depth has arguably been even more remarkable. I wrote in the preview that the entire team would more or less run unopposed, and that came to fruition in Friendship Park on Saturday.
After a steady first lap, five of the six Kenyans moved to the fore. Only Cintia Chepngeno – sixth at the national trials and the only team member with no global medals to her name – failed to go with her compatriots. By the halfway point, the leading quintet had left the rest of the world in their wake, with 10km world record holder Agnes Ngetich doing a lot of the front running in an attempt to take the kick out of her opponent’s legs. Chebet made it clear that tactic wouldn’t work as she moved alongside Ngetich on the penultimate lap, more as a statement of intent than anything else. This piqued the attention of Lilian Rengeruk, who took over the lead as Ngetich began to struggle on the final lap. Emmaculate Anyango was the first victim of Rengeruk’s surge, with Ngetich, drained after her long stint at the front, drifting off the back soon thereafter. Three became two in the home straight as Margaret Kipkemboi resigned to the bronze medal position, and despite her efforts, Chebet was able to ease past Rengeruk over the closing stages just as she did in Riga five months ago. Crossing the line three seconds clear, Chebet became the first woman since Tirunesh Dibaba in 2006 to successfully defend her World Cross Country title, while Rengeruk upgraded her disappointing 12th place from Aarhus four years ago to silver.
Kenya received a perfect score in the team race in a display of dominance rarely seen in international sports. Even the likes of Ngetich – who finished fifth and failed to score for her country – were still more than half a minute clear of the rest of the world.
“After the trials, when they select our team, we stay together, we train together, we talk together. We even eat the same food and sleep together in the same place,” explained Chebet when asked about Kenya’s performance.
“That’s how we are able to be the best.”
Chebet has now won three global titles in the last 14 months and will go into the Paris Olympics later this year full of confidence. After earning two minor medals at the last two editions of the World Athletics Championships, I’m sure she would dearly like to win gold on the world’s biggest stage.
On the other hand, Ngetich had what can only be described as an underwhelming day in Belgrade. After medalling at last year’s World Cross Country Championships and finishing sixth at the 2023 World Athletics Championships, the Kenyan stamped her authority on the distance running world by opening her 2024 account with a 10km world record of 28:46. Her performance improved upon the old record by almost half a minute and marked the first time a woman had broken 29 minutes over 10km on any surface.
A number of people hypothesised that this breakout race marked the emergence of a new distance-running superstar, but a fifth-place finish in Serbia last weekend served to tame some of that hype. Admittedly, it’s difficult to judge someone based on one performance: that being said, her 10km world record earlier this year was also just one performance. While the 23-year-old is definitely quick, speculations that she was due to become an unstoppable force on the track come Paris have been tempered.
Elite Men
With Jacob Kiplimo also repeating as World Cross Country champion, it’s just the fifth time in history that both races have witnessed successful title defences.
While the first few early breakaways from overzealous athletes failed to trouble the big names, a surge from Kenya’s Gideon Rono just after halfway provoked a response. 2019 World Cross Country champion Joshua Cheptegei moved to the front of the chase pack at the start of the penultimate lap, which was led in its entirety by Rono. But the Kenyan, who was only third at his national trials, was quite literally running on borrowed time. Cheptegei stormed past him with the chase pack in tow as the bell sounded for the final lap, and Rono, to his credit, tucked into the back of the leading group. Unfortunately for him, that is where he would stay, eventually crossing the line in eighth.
At the front, Kiplimo was looking to replicate his tactics from Bathurst last year. The Ugandan moved past his compatriot and thinned the field with an injection of pace around the back of the final lap, and it quickly became clear that nobody had the legs to match him. Kiplimo has now won three races at the World Cross Country Championships, making him history’s fourth most successful man in the discipline.
"I was hungry for medals after missing Budapest last year. I was in good shape, but then the injury happened, and I had to get treatment, but I am back now," assured Kiplimo in a post-race interview.
Berihu Aregawi also replicated his performance from Bathurst, crossing the line in second after a sprint finish with Benson Kiplangat, who finished third and helped Kenya retain their men’s team title.
Cheptegei lost favour over the closing stages and eventually crossed the line in sixth. It was his worst finish since the 2017 World Cross Country Championships and comes on the back of a disappointing marathon debut last December. As a result, it’s fair to ask if the 27-year-old has started to decline.
As the reigning 5000m and 10,000m world record holder, Cheptegei’s legacy sits in the company of the only two men to have held either of those records this century: Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele. Gebreselassie broke both world records in 1998 and held them until Bekele took them both in 2004. He kept those until Cheptegei broke them in 2020. The careers of Gebrselassie and Bekele mirrored each other surprisingly closely, so it’s reasonable to compare Cheptegei to them. All three men favoured the 10,000m over everything else on the track, and all have enjoyed great success. Gebrselassie and Bekele each won four world championships and two Olympic titles over the distance, with their last victories coming at age 27. Cheptegei hasn’t won as many 10,000m titles – none at the Olympics and three at the world championships – but he, like his predecessors, is now 27.
Ultimately, this comparison of age is probably meaningless. Mo Farah, the person Cheptegei replaced as world 10,000m champion, didn’t even win his first 10,000m title until he was 29. What is not meaningless, however, is that Cheptegei had run world records within 12 months of the Tokyo Olympics and still failed to win the 10,000m. Since defending his world title in Budapest last year, the Ugandan has failed to start in the world 5000m final, finished 37th in his marathon debut, lost a 10km race on the roads, and has now finished 6th at the World Cross Country Championships. There is still plenty of time between now and the Paris Olympics, and as the reigning world champion, you can’t rule him out: but, if he wants to compete for gold in the French capital, he will need to find form that he simply doesn’t have at the moment.
You can access the results from the 2024 World Cross Country Championships here.