Waithaka, Jebet facing stiff competition in Hannut cross

Former world 10,000m silver medalist (2022) Stanley Waithaka Mburu and compatriot Gideon Rono, eighth in last year’s World Cross Country Championships, lead Kenya's charge for medals at this year's Cross Cup de Hannut, a World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold meeting, set for Sunday 26 January. 

In the women's race, teenage sensation Kenya’s Sheila Jebet, who was second at the Cinque Mulini and in Cardiff is also lining up again a strong field chasing her first victory of the year. The 19-year-old finished fourth in the U20 race at the World Cross Country Championships last year.

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The men's field is headlined by Kenyan-born Belgian, fresh off a national 10km record in Valencia, Isaac Kimeli, who aim for another strong performance on home soil. 

He will face some tough opposition, however, with the field for the 9km men’s race also featuring the likes of Uganda’s Dan Kibet and Burundi’s Celestin Ndikumana, both currently sitting in the top seven on the World Cross Country Tour standings.

An Olympic 5000m finalist, the 30-year-old ran 27:10 to improve the Belgian 10km record and finish fifth in Valencia, a month on from his fourth-place finish at the European Cross Country Championships. 

Meanwhile, Ndikumana was five places behind Kimeli in Valencia in a personal best (PB) of 27:23 and six days before that he finished second in the Campaccio cross country meeting in San Giorgio su Legnano. 

Kibet opened his season with a cross country win in Spain, after a year in which he finished 11th at the World Cross Country Championships and claimed podium places in Amorebieta-Etxano and Cardiff.

Additionally, Uganda’s Rogers Kibet returns to Hannut after a second-place finish here in 2022, while Robin Hendrix and Ruben Querinjean join Kimeli in racing on home soil.

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In the women’s 9km contest, Ethiopia’s Yenenesh Shimket will go up against her fellow 17-year-old Charity Cherop of Uganda, both 2024 World Cross Country Tour Gold meeting winners. The field also features Anna Bankowska-Gosk of Poland, on the hunt for her third Cross Cup de Hannut victory.

Shimket claimed her World Cross Country Tour Gold meeting win at the Cinque Mulini in November and she picked up from where she left off, winning her season opener last weekend, also in Italy.

Making her season debut on the same day but in Spain was Cherop, the world U20 5000m bronze medalist who won the Cardiff Cross Challenge in November. Of those entered, she is the leading athlete on the World Cross Country Tour standings going into the race.

Returning to Hannut is Bankowska-Gosk, who claimed her two wins at the event in 2019 and 2020. They will all be joined by Britain’s Jessica Gibbon, who won the Cross Cup in Roeselare in October, plus Belgium’s Chloe Herbiet and Roxane Cleppe.

Hannut's cross country history received recognition two days before this year's race, when the Cross Cup de Hannut was awarded a World Athletics Heritage Plaque.

Additional reporting by World Athletics