LetsRun.com Goes to Serbia for 2024 World Cross Country Champs
Boots are on the ground in Serbia, where the 80-degree temps on Saturday will be the real challenge, not the very flat Belgrade course (although it's been spiced up with hay bales, artificial hills and a mud pit)
By Jonathan Gault
BELGRADE, Serbia — Hello from Serbia!
It feels like just yesterday I was at Budapest’s National Athletics Centre for the 2023 World Athletics Championships and now I’m back in Central Europe — albeit a few hundred miles down the Danube River — for Saturday’s 2024 World Athletics Cross Country Championships.
I’m here solo, and I’ll admit it: I miss the Johnson brothers. These big international trips are more interesting when one of them is involved, and I mean interesting in every sense of the word. Hectic and chaotic? Occasionally. Messy? You bet. But fun and exciting too. There’s no way I would have gone gorilla trekking in Uganda without the Brojos, and for better or worse, Robert encouraged me to try an electric scooter for the first time in Hungary last year, which ended with me losing a game of chicken against a group of drunken fans on the night Noah Lyles became 100-meter world champion. It is never boring with the Johnsons.
But they’re not here this weekend and LetsRun.com needs boots-on-the-ground coverage from one of our favorite events. Since the site was founded in 2000, we’ve traveled around the globe for World XC: Ireland, Kenya, Jordan, Poland, China, Uganda, Denmark, and Australia. So I’m here solo as Serbia hosts the World’s Greatest Footrace for the first time.
It’s early going, but the buzz is not quite the same as the last two editions in Aarhus and Bathurst. Though that’s not a fair comparison. It’s easy to be the talk of the town when the town is small. Aarhus has a population of 290,000, Bathurst 37,000. Belgrade’s is 1.3 million.
Maybe it’s because I did not get in until Thursday afternoon around 3 p.m., by which time the only folks still on the course were the organizers for Tallahassee 2026 getting pointers on how to stage the next edition. The only runners I saw today were the Peru team waiting for a bus back to their hotel and the Canadian U20 squad, a few of whom were doing laps of the Munich airport to stay loose.
But I think the feeling stems from the course itself. In Bathurst last year and especially in Aarhus five years ago, the course was the star of the show. Aarhus was the hardest cross country course I’ve ever seen as well as the most entertaining. Bathurst’s course was hilly and tough, with some nice touches of local flavor, including the vineyard section.
Belgrade’s course, on the other hand, is barely a step above what you’d find at a high school dual meet. The Park of Friendship, which will host the meet, is right on the Danube, and there are a number of waterfront restaurants nearby for post-race activities. But there is little to distinguish the section of the park the course runs through from any other European park. The only “hills” to speak of are a couple of bright blue temporary bridges covering concrete walkways.
This is not the fault of the Belgrade organizers. The cities of Medulin and Pula in Croatia were initially awarded this meet back in July 2022, but World Athletics stripped the event from them in September 2023, stating that “preparations have not advanced sufficiently.” Belgrade was not announced as the host until September 27, leaving the organizers barely six months to organize the championships.
As a result, the course lacks creativity compared to the last two editions. But rather than criticize Belgrade for what they don’t have, they deserve praise for stepping up and delivering a championships on short notice. If the 2024 edition had been cancelled, that would have meant just one World XC in the six-year stretch from 2020-25. Thankfully, that will not be an issue and running fans will instead get three World XCs in four years from 2023-26.
The biggest factor on Saturday, by far, will be the weather. With a high of 81 degrees in the forecast as of Thursday night and little cloud cover expected, taking steps to avoid melting down in the heat will be of utmost importance. From Kenenisa Bekele at Mombasa 2007 to Joshua Cheptegei at Kampala 2017 to Letesenbet Gidey last year in Bathurst, even the mightiest runners have come undone on warm days at World XC. If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone.
I don’t expect the course itself will have much effect on the outcome, but let’s take a quick tour just so we’re all familiar with it ahead of Saturday’s races.
The Course
The course is fairly straightforward: one skinny 1887m loop that is run five times in the senior races, in addition to a 270m starting straight and 320m finishing straight (the start/finish is in the same area). One thing to note is that the entire field will do a U-turn less than 300m into the race. A reminder to get off the line well.
From there, it’s time for the first “feature”: a short wooden box used to cover a cement barrier that runners will have to hurdle. Watch out for stubbed toes!
The Belgrade course is notable for a number of trees sprinkled throughout the middle of the course. Rather than design the course around the trees, the organizers threw some pads on these bad boys and we’re good to go.
Heading back west along the river, a set of four rows of hay bales. They stack up to around two feet — lower than a steeple barrier — but I’d expect most athletes to weave in and out as they did with the tires last year in Bathurst, rather than going up and over.
As is now becoming tradition, there is a dirt patch of about 15 meters that will be flooded on race day to create a mud pit. That is about as gnarly as the footing will get on Saturday.
Past the mud pit, there is a hairpin turn that is supposed to feature a DJ spinning tunes on Saturday (though there was no sign of them today). After that, there are more trees to dodge — these ones much younger. I was told that these trees are new additions to the park and weren’t initially meant to be on the course. They just happened to be planted on the area used for the course. Voila, another obstacle for the runners.
This section would actually look very cool a few years from now once the trees are grown and in bloom. But this is what it will look like on Saturday:
This part of the course also runs parallel to the Palace of Serbia, an impressive building that is home to a number of government offices as well as a fine art collection.
Crest this blue hill and you’re back to the start of the loop. The first four times, athletes will turn left and repeat the loop. The final time, they’ll head straight, where there’s nothing but flat ground between them and the finish line.
The start/finish line was still under construction on Thursday but should be good to go by race day. In the background, you can see the “Eternal Flame” monument — dedicated to the casualties of the 1999 NATO bombing in what was then Yugoslavia.
That’s it from Belgrade today. I’m working on about two hours’ sleep and am headed to bed soon, but check back on LetsRun.com the rest of the week for more coverage from Serbia. I’ll be at the course Friday morning to try to talk to some athletes before heading to the press conference Friday afternoon. Then on race day we’ll have post-race analysis, interviews, and a live post-race video show from Belgrade at 12 p.m. ET on Saturday. See you soon!
