Tanzania: Kenya Bid to Continue World Cross Domination

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

20 March 2011

Punta Umbria — Kenya will seek an unprecedented second sweep of all six golds on offer at today’s World Cross-Country Championships to further wrest power away from traditional rivals Ethiopia.

The Kenyans dominated proceedings in Bydgoszcz, Poland, last year, Joseph Ebuyer and Emily Chebet claiming the individual senior titles, while the junior races and both team events also all went the way of the east African nation.

Neither Ebuyer nor Chebet will be back to defend their crowns having failed to even finish their national trials, but such is the depth in running talent in Kenya that their replacements are installed among the firm favourites.

Further Kenyan success would be a hammerblow to Ethiopia, whose athletes won 20 of the 30 individual titles between 2004 and 2009, but are now slightly rudderless in the absence of Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba.

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