PREVIEW - WOMEN’s Races – WXC Edinburgh 2008

Edinburgh, Scotland - Tirunesh Dibaba has something to prove. That may seem an odd thing to say of a 22-year-old who has already won two World Cross Country titles and four World Championship golds on the track.

But when the Ethiopian lines up for the start of the 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Edinburgh, Scotland on Sunday (30 March) she’ll be aware of a few doubts lingering over her like a Scottish mist.

A year ago she was the undisputed queen of Ethiopian distance running and started the championships in Mombasa as red hot favourite to complete a hat-trick of victories. After all, she was a double World champion and the newly-crowned World indoor 5000m record holder.

But her dreams of winning a third successive title wilted in the Kenyan heat as Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat ran away with the honours, leaving Dibaba gasping in her wake. It marked the start of a difficult year for the Ethiopian, one she will want to put well and truly behind her this weekend.

Although she retained her World 10,000m title in Osaka, chronic abdominal problems forced Dibaba to cancel the rest of her 2007 track season and she lost her status as Ethiopia’s golden girl to Meseret Defar.

What’s more, while Defar has carried her record-breaking form into 2008, Dibaba’s fitness remains something of a mystery. She has raced just once this year, at the Boston Indoor Games in February, and not at all at cross country.

With Kiplagat not defending her title, a fully fit Dibaba will still start as favourite to win in the Scottish capital although her bid to match Lynn Jennings and Derartu Tulu as a triple champion will be far from easy.

The 8km course over Holyrood Park’s rough, hilly terrain couldn’t be more different from the hard, flat, oven-baked ground of Mombasa and without any cross country races behind her the slight Dibaba could find it tough going.

What’s more, in Gelete Burka and Meselech Melkamu, she has two formidable opponents from within her own team who’ve recently shown they’re in scintillating form.

Melkamu won a silver medal over 3000m at the World indoors in Valencia earlier this month, finishing just a place behind Defar, and will need little motivation to challenge her countrywoman. Last year she came close to denying Dibaba the silver medal, missing out by just one second in the closing sprint as she claimed her second bronze medal in a row.

Burka also had a successful World Indoors, setting an African 1500m record as she finished third in the Spanish city. She also won the Ethiopian cross country title for the first time and will be keen to improve on her fourth place from 2007. Like Melkamu, she’s an experienced cross country performer having won the short course race in 2006.

With these three leading the charge, Ethiopia will be heavily tipped to win the team title for the seventh year in a row, although as ever they will be hard pressed by the Kenyans.

After winning all the team contests in 2007 except for the senior women’s race, last year’s hosts have opted for youth this time, fielding a senior women’s team led by the 2007 World Junior XC champion, Linet Masai.

After such an assured victory in last year’s junior race, Masai, who’s still only 17, looks set to make an impressive debut in the senior ranks. Kenya’s young lions will be supported by the more experienced Priscah Jepleting, the 2006 short course silver medallist, and Grace Monany.

Apart from the Kenyan-born Kiplagat, Simret Sultan was the leading finisher from outside Kenya or Ethiopia last year. After placing ninth in Mombasa the Eritrean will again be looking for a top ten place.

Similarly, Zhor El Kamch, who was 11th in 2007, returns at the head of a Moroccan squad that took the team bronze last year and will again be hoping to make the podium.

Benita Johnson, the 2004 champion, leads the non-African challenge, although the Australian’s hopes of repeating her triumph of four years ago appear slight.

Johnson, who also finished fourth in 2006, became the first ever Australian World Cross Country champion in Brussels. But after her recent withdrawal from the London Marathon due to lack of training, it seems unlikely she will be in medal-winning form this year.

Despite being staged in Britain for the first time since 1995, the championships will be missing many of the host nation’s leading distance runners, including Paula Radcliffe, the 2001 and 2002 champion, Mara Yamauchi and Jo Pavey.

But in the sisters-in-law Hayley and Liz Yelling, they have two athletes capable of finishing in the top-20 if the course and the crowd work to their advantage. Hayley Yelling was European Cross Country champion in 2004, while Liz runs in Edinburgh as a warm up for the London Marathon in two weeks time.

Junior women

It is no surprise that the junior women’s race is also likely to be a battle between Kenya and Ethiopia as these are the only two nations ever to have won a junior women’s team title since the junior races were introduced in 1989. What’s more, every individual title except four have been won by athletes from these east African countries, and every one since 1995 when Finland’s Annemari Sandell won in Durham.

As it stands, Kenya are leading the team competition 13-6 and after sweeping the individual medals in Mombasa last year they will be confident of adding a 14th title to their collection in Edinburgh.

In Mercy Kosgei, they also have strong hopes for a third successive individual gold. With Masai promoted to the senior ranks, Kosgei will be hoping to improve on her silver medal from Mombasa.

Although 2007 bronze medallist Veronica Wanjiru is missing, Kosgei should be well supported by some new Kenyan faces, including Christine Mayanga and Dorcas Jepchirchir.

Ethiopia has not won the junior women’s team title since 2004, and the individual title has eluded them since Burka won in 2005. But in Emebt Etea they have a runner who has more reason than most to put the over-heated horrors of Mombasa behind her.

Etea collapsed dramatically after two of the three laps last year and her face became a symbol of the Ethiopians’ failure to prepare adequately for the Kenyan conditions. But Etea has bounced back in 2008 to win the Ethiopian trials and, like Dibaba among the seniors, feels she has something to prove.

Her assault on the title will be supported by Tirunesh’s younger sister Genzebe Dibaba, who was fifth in 2007, plus the less experienced trio of Tigist Mamuye, Emebet Bacha, and Bitaw Yehune all making their first journeys outside Ethiopia.

It was a sign of Ethiopia’s distress last year that they not only missed out on gold but also lost the team silver – the first time they’d been out of the top two since 1997. That was largely down to Meraf Bahta and Fortuna Zegergish, who finished sixth and eighth respectively tohoist Eritrea into second place. Bahta and Zegergish are back this time and will be hoping to put their country on the podium again.

Outside the three African nations, the Japanese squad can also expect to do well, and in Charlotte Purdue and Emily Pidgeon Britain has two athletes who finished in the top 20 last time. With so many of Britain’s bigger names missing, they’ll be keen to give the Scottish crowd something to cheer.