2013 World Cross Country Course Was Officially Short

By LetsRun.com
April 3, 2013

Last week, we told you not to believe the times at the 2013 world cross country championships as despite the article on the IAAF site that speculated as to what junior men’s winner Hagos Gebrhiwet would have run for 10,000 , there was no way the courses were 6k, 8k or 12k long.

Sure enough, we were right. Paul Hardy of the IAAF Competition department gave us the following statement about the distance at 2013 Worlds:

Our Rules indicate that the course length for the WXC should be approximately 12km, 8km, 8km and 6km.  Due to the various conditions in which cross country is run (hills vs flat, straight vs winding, etc, the times mean little.  Cross country courses are not measured using the same accuracy of a road course which is another reason the distances are approximate.

The loop in Bydgoszcz was approximately 1920m with approximately 150m covering the distance from the start to the loop and from the loop to the finish meaning the race lengths were approximately;

SM – 11,670m
SW/JM – 7830m
JW – 5880m

More: MB It’s official – we have confirmation from IAAF – 2013 world xc courses were short – they weren’t 6k, 8k or 12k
*LRC The 2013 World Cross-Country Course Had To Be Short