Cross Champs - WA Gold XC in USA - is Thursday at 8:30 am ET. Official Discussion Thread

Yet you made sure to have a Valby picture because reasons.

Per Charles Hicks, race is on grass w/hay bales . . .

Entries look very low (1 or 2 full mens team and 2 or 3 full women's teams).

Why is this event needed when the USATF Club Championships exist and are the TRUE club championships?

Why is this on a Thursday morning?

So they can catch lunch?

"In case you forgot, the 2024 Olympic standards in the 10,000 meters : 27:00 for men and 30:40 for women. But there's another way to qualify for Paris the 10,000 meters, and that's . Athletes need three races to attain a world ranking, and Thursday's Cross Champs in Austin, staged by Sound Running, is the only World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold event in the United States. "

Why aren't more going for the 10k ranking this way? Quite a few will not hit the standard and this is an option. After the uncertainty at USATF whether Rogers would even be sent to Budapest, I thought more would try to get it through cross country for sure.

Agreed.

Last year the event was held at a ridiculous course at a private high school.

This year the course location is better but the entries are weak. Probably because it is held in November.

Unsure how a Sound Running event second year in the making gains a gold level classification.

USATF cross events should have high level classification - that alone would grow the sport of cross country in the USA

Club nats seems to be more for amateurs. This is for pros.

But this meet shows you why in part why our sport isn't more popular. College guys are at BU, pros here, amateurs at a different meet. Everyone - not the governing body - decides what event is best for them.

If we had fewer events but more events that everyone had to run, then we'd have more compelling races. Like imagine if everyone was forced to be here. THen next year at BU. I know it will never happen.

As for this race, i'm thinking to myself, "Shouldn't Chelangat destroy all of these women?" But Wasserman actually has a faster 5k pb than her.

But my brain just IDs people as "NCAA champs, big name recognition" vs "Who is that again?"

Kiptoo, Hacker, Hicks, Wildschutt. A lot of NCAA champs and all Americans.

Gear is way back

Live results aren’t working, can someone drop some updates?

Wasserman

Izzo

Chelangat

Nichols

Wasserman went off course with 400 to go but spectators lifted rope to get her back

D3 champ Parker 6th

Kiptoo early lead

The idea appears to be to work toward a little pro xc season, where Usatf and worlds would be the finals.

Current situation would be this meet, plus a couple in Spain/Europe make the little season. That still gives the participants enough races to use xc as the 10 k world (Olympic?) qualifier.

A pro xc series of varying length on courses like vcp, Panorama, Stillwater, Zimmer, Gibson, Lehigh, Mt sac, Holmdel, Bowdoin etc is an interesting idea. In theory it could even piggy back on some of big college and hs meets to ensure crowds. It would be fun to see pro times on courses everyone knows at 3mi, 5k, 6k, 8k, 10k times.