Presence, not podiums, the measure for Ireland at World Cross Country Championships

WORLD CROSS COUNTRY: Brian Fay is the sole Irish entrant in the senior men’s race, with Fiona Everard and Niamh Allen in the senior women’s and Noah Harris in the U20 men’s. Athletics Ireland gave many more the option to go. Picture:  ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy

At an event like the World Cross Country Championships, success or failure for the Irish must be judged in far more nuanced terms than medals or top-10 finishes – which in recent times have been awfully hard to come by for European nations. Such is the ruthless, cutthroat standard at the event, a single top-30 finish would be a great return from any of the four Irish athletes who toe the line in Tallahassee, Florida today.

Brian Fay is the sole Irish entrant in the senior men’s race, with Fiona Everard and Niamh Allen in the senior women’s and Noah Harris in the U20 men’s. Athletics Ireland gave many more the option to go but for various reasons, those invites weren’t accepted. And so Ireland is unlikely to make much of an impact in Tallahassee. But it will have a presence – and that’s important.

Fay looks capable of a top-30 finish while Everard returns to the World Cross having finished 60th in 2024, but the Bandon athlete is a much stronger athlete now, having finished a terrific 10th at last month’s Europeans. Allen, who finished 10th in the 2024 Europeans, will make her debut at global level.

Three members of the Irish senior men’s team that won silver at last month’s Europeans – Jack O’Leary, Cormac Dalton and Efrem Gidey – have prioritised a 10km on the streets of Valencia tomorrow where they will chase the qualifying standard (27:50) for the European Championships in August – the key focus for Irish athletes this year.

While the World Cross still retains significant prestige, claims of it still being the world’s best race – in the absence of supporting evidence – now fall as flat as the long-running claims from its current host about being the greatest country in the world. In both cases you’re compelled to ask: by what metric?

From Jakob Ingebrigtsen to Nadia Battocletti to Cole Hocker, many of the world’s best have opted out this year, but an equally troubling trend is the relative lack of interest among the less accomplished. European nations are increasingly waving a white flag amid African dominance with Italy, Germany, Norway, Poland and Portugal are among the many not sending a single athlete to Florida. France’s Jimmy Gressier, the world 10,000m champion, will toe the line, and it’ll be fascinating to see how he fares against Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, who’s seeking his third straight title.

The course has a range of modifications/gimmicks such as a water pit, mud pit, sand pit, a man-made hill and logs to jump with ornamental alligators atop them, but a far more powerful method of returning cross country to what it once was, and achieving an eventual place in the Winter Olympics, would be to incentivise the majority of the world’s top distance runners to show up. That hasn’t been the case for some time, and as a result one of the sport’s most fabled events is drifting further from public view.

The event’s new January slot has not had the effect that World Athletics intended, though it’s understood their preference had been to move it to December, which would have necessitated an adjustment in the date of the Europeans.

Still, some athletes who wanted to be there will not be able to. Ethiopia – one of the superpowers of cross country – will not field any U20 teams after 14 athletes had their visa applications rejected. With the World Cup and Los Angeles Olympics looming into view, it’s one more reason authorities should be feeling uneasy about giving its biggest events to the land of the free.

World Cross Country Championships: Live, 3:50pm, Virgin Media Two