Few people forget their school cross-country days, trudging through murky playing fields on freezing winter afternoons, invariably clad in kit sourced from the lost property bin.
While park runs, trail runs and marathons boom in popularity among the masses, cross-country appetite from the general public is almost entirely absent, likely influenced by those negative schoolday connotations.
At elite level, it is similarly shunned.
“The prestige is not close to when I did it,” said Tim Hutchings, the last British man to win a World Cross Country medal when claiming his second silver in 1989.
“There were several winters where I was among the best cross-country runners in the world and I would go to Europe, win races in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and it was a very lucrative circuit. It was very much a worthwhile, highly recognised sport in its own right. Now, there just isn’t any money in it.”
A lack of financial incentive is critical. British Athletics funding is linked specifically to track and road performances in Olympic and Paralympic disciplines – a major consideration in Keith looking beyond cross country.
UK Sport began distributing National Lottery funding to Olympic and Paralympic sports in May 1997, allocating it according to medal potential. Before that athletics had been largely amateur until the 1980s, when athletes were left to generate their own income if they wanted to turn professional.
Other factors have also impacted the decline in stature of cross country. The domination of African runners has altered perception of competitiveness, with no-one from outside the continent making the World Cross Country men’s podium for more than two decades – or women’s podium for 12 years.
At either end of the competitive spectrum, the discipline is largely ignored and unloved but, within its own hardcore athletics club community, it remains strong.
More than 5,000 people ran at last year’s English National Cross Country Championships, while the Surrey, Birmingham, Metropolitan and Chiltern Cross Country Leagues all routinely welcome in excess of 1,500 competitors for their monthly events.
Cross-country courses are all different and distances vary at each event, although a standardised length of 10km was established at the World Championships from 2019.
