Mawia dominates women's world cross country as 2022 draws to a close

Kenya's Lucy Mawia, the 2021/22 World Athletics Cross Country Tour runners-up has enjoyed a successful season in the 2022/23 season set to conclude in March next year. 

The tour always straddles two years, starting in October and concluding in February or March of the following year. 

There were seven Gold level meetings left in the 2021-2022 tour at the start of the year, and all seven elite women’s races produced different winners.

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Kenyan athletes won three of the seven races, with Edinah Jebitok winning in Elgoibar, Teresiah Muthoni Gateri taking the spoils at Cinque Mulini, and Joyce Chepkemoi Tele victorious in Eldoret.

But ultimately it was Eritrea’s Rahel Daniel who won the overall women’s series, thanks to her victory in Albufeira in late February, as well as her strong performances earlier in the tour.

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The 21-year-old went on to enjoy a successful track campaign but hasn’t raced since the 2022-2023 World Cross Country Tour began in October.

Instead it has been Mawia who has dominated the current season. She has already racked up three victories firstly Bydgoszcz in October, and Soria and Alcobendas in November, meaning she is guaranteed at least a share of the top prize.

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But there is still potential for someone to join her at the top of the leaderboard by the end of the season as there are eight more Gold meetings due to take place in January and February.

Other notable victories earlier this year came from Ethiopia’s Dawit Seyaum, who won the Campaccio meeting in early January, Olympic steeplechase champion Peruth Chemutai of Uganda, who won in Hannut, and Turkey’s Yasemin Can, who was triumphant in Serradilla in March.

The series will no doubt heat up even more over the next two months as athletes gear up for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships Bathurst 2023 on 18 February.