Petition to NCAA: 8km Race Distance for ALL at the NCAA XC Championships

This is consistently voted down at NCAA coaching conventions. The biggest advocates AGAINST this are female coaches.

This has nothing to do with gender equity and inclusion because the women do have a race and are already included in the championship.

This is like arguing that women should play baseball instead of softball.

Honestly I’d rather have it be 6k for both men and women. Mid-D specialists would be more in the mix, which would be exciting. More sprint finishes. Also easier to all out race two back to back 6ks than 10ks (regionals and nationals), so would incentivize less jogging at regionals.

But yes I agree it should be the same for men and women.

Wrong direction. Both genders need to race 5K in college at all levels.* In U.S. we need to make our 800m and our 1500m athletes feel like part of the team. * The track top 5000m and 10000m athletes shouldn't care. The top 5000m and top 10000m athletes will still win. * There are too many stress fractures now anyway. We don't need any college athletes racing 8k. * The only runners who will complain are the ones who are complaining on here, 6, 7 & 8 runners with slow 400 times.

When Ron Hill was in his prime the English National XC was TEN MILES.

6k is more exciting and gives mid d a chance to compete.

Change it to 10K for both and I'll sign.

+1

"I would think the best women 5000m & 10000m runners win 6K XC races. Yes or no?

If U.S. had 3K high school XC, both genders. The best distance runners would still win 3K XC but 800m runners would feel more a part of the team and occasional 400m athletes would participate in XC. If college XC at all levels were 5K, 800m runners would feel like they are a members of the team. Five-thousand metres XC, both genders only can increase the likelihood of U.S. 800m medals without decreasing opportunities for U.S. 5000m & 10000m runners."

Only if they change the womens hurdles to 110 and the same height as the mens at the same time

Steeple. Shot. Disc. Hurdles. XC. Size of basketball. 3 point line. There are hundreds of differences. Let's do away with men's and women's sports and have one for everyone. College math classes or science classes are not segregated with women having lower standards of admission.

Dave wottle was top 10 over ncaa over 10k. And most of the meets were 10k then. Ovett competed just fine over 9 miles cross country

if 800 runners want to run cross they can already do it. Telling 10k runners we are shortening the distance for 800 runners is absurd

Sure, as soon as the NCAA coaches vote out men running 6k claiming to be women.

It should not be changed unless a majority of the actual athletes want to change it. Do they? I seriously doubt it and forced "equity" is not equity.

I hereby petition that we stop punishing males by making them run further than women.

Why do you want to shorten the men's distance? They seem to handle 10k just fine.

I would love to see what a deep field (nuttycomb, NCAA) men would look like over 6k. It might be absurdly crowded. I know WC did 4k but my memory was much smaller fields. 4 scorers might be interesting also. How many more teams would think they had a chance to build a competive team. If you have 2 low sticks. Hit that transfer portal hard....

And it will never happen but image they added another couple rounds. Something like regionals cut you to 64, another round cuts you to 8 and then we do nationals.

No.

Move away from standardized distance in XC. Run the course, that's it. Whether it's a 3 mile, 12k, etc., just run the course. Male, female, whatever.

I think the only voices that should matter are those of the athletes and coaches. For me, as a fifty-year-old man, to sign this petition is to try to insert my voice into a matter where I should have no say.

However, I am interested to know if I could read anything or see any results of votes taken by the coaches? I trust that this has been voted on, I would just be interested in learning more about it, what were the major arguments, what were vote tallies, whatever.

While I agree the distances should be the same and 8K is a good option, this is a waste of time. Like the second poster said, this is consistently voted down. It is not going to happen regardless of petitions, etc.

For the athletes to be able to train properly they need to know what the distance will be for their major meets.

Sure, you could run 7.8, 8, or 8.2k and it might not matter, but you can't run a 10k regional and then a 5.5k championship.

I cannot think of Wottle running 10k xc. Not even once. Refresh my memory?