The 2024 World Cross Country Championships was far from perfect but it remains one of the most important events on the athletics calendar

Where were all the crowds?

Two hours before the first race at the World Cross Country Championships, there was a 5km fun run on the banks of the Sava River next to the Park of Friendship. As I was walking to the championships I spotted some runners leaving the event, but in the direction of Belgrade city centre and not the World Cross.

Then I saw a Welsh runner and AW reader who told me hed stumbled upon the event randomly, took part on a whim and was planning to get back to the park to watch the World Cross races. We wondered just how many fun runners were aware the greatest runners in the world were competing a few hundred metres away later that morning.

As it turns out, probably not many. The crowds for the races were sparse. This was despite Seb Coe calling for the people to come out and watch. Its not often a world championships comes to your city, he said on the eve of the event.

Trying to find how to watch the event on television or the internet was the usual struggle, too. A few days before the event British fans were left scratching around for various internet feeds. Whether it was on the BBC was a mystery at that stage, although they belatedly came up with the goods by announcing their coverage on red button, iPlayer and online just 48 hours before the races began.

Apparently their coverage had been planned for months. So why wait until so late in the day to tell people? Emails from AW to BBC publicity people a week or so before the champs were ignored as well. Then, to add insult to injury, they didnt show the under-20 womens race.

When it came to fans at the event, Geoff Wightman reminded everyone on Twitter that the 2008 World Champs in Edinburgh, which he helped orchestrate, had great crowds. True, they were far better than Belgrade and most other World Cross events. But I remember the UKA performance director at the time didnt bother going. Nor did some of Britains big-name athletes like Mo Farah. It was a busy event, too, but not exactly packed to the rafters and I reported at the time that lots of British athletes and coaches had missed an opportunity not to watch the World Cross on their doorstep.

Belgrade is the new Bydgoszcz

Before Saturdays World Cross, Belgrade also hosted the 2022 World Indoors, 2017 European Indoors and the 2013 European Cross Country Champs. Is reminds me of Bydgoszcz in Poland, who over the last 20 years have hosted an unusually large number of international athletics events including the World Cross in both 2010 and 2013, largely because there were no other bona fide bidders incidentally.

Of course Belgrade was not the No.1 choice for the 2024 World Cross either. It was meant to be held in Croatia in mid-February but those plans were abandoned late last year when World Athletics announced diplomatically that the preparations were not sufficiently advanced.

Belgrade was considered a safe pair of hands and if the Park of Friendship was considered good enough for a Euro Cross in 2013 then it would be fine for a World Cross 11 years later. Belgrade has consistently bid and shown interest in our events, said Coe. But we dont give away these events lightly. The organisers are world class and the leaders in the country invest in our sport.

Lets be honest, when it came to the course in the Park of Friendship, the organisers didnt have much to play with. It was just a large patchy area of grass with no hills. The Danube was metres away but no one could really see it from the park itself. In World Athletics defence, Belgrade was always Plan B.

Yet on the day itself, the global governing body winged it by making it sufficiently challenging that no one could doubt that it was a true test. Athletes collapsed across the finish line dripping with sweat and caked in mud too. The first aid tent remained busy too.

The blue man-made hills were aesthetically pleasing but not much of a test, but the hay maze got everyone talking and succeeded in breaking the stride of the athletes. The short section of mud did its job as well.

Still, lets hope Tallahassee in 2026 has more varied natural terrain and bigger crowds.

A star is born

Abbie Donnelly was the top individual performer in the British team in Belgrade. The quietly spoken Lincolnshire lass embraced the role of team captain and stepped up to the challenge by delivering what I heard was an inspirational and well received speech.

Later, I heard she was good enough to make some of her team-mates a team GB bracelet for the competition itself. It was a lovely thought, said Alice Goodall, but Abbie will be embarrassed that Ive told you this.

Not only did @BritAthletics team captain Abbie Donnelly lead by example with a fine 20th place at #Belgrade2024 but she these made bracelets for her World Cross team-mates in the senior womens race.

Models hand: Alice Goodall pic.twitter.com/ASqfnGFxPC

Jason Henderson (@Jason_AW) March 30, 2024

Then, in the senior womens race on Saturday, Donnelly put in a captains performance to finish 20th the second European home less than half a minute behind Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal of Norway. Her dream goal was a top 15 place, but she was still happy.

In December she finished third in the Euro Cross in Brussels. Given this, a suitable stretch target should be a tilt at the title in Antalya, Turkey, in eight months time? No pressure.

Relay great from British battlers

I have to admit, I dont naturally warm to mixed relays on the track or country but I invariably enjoy them when they actually take place. The event in Belgrade was a good example as it was full of drama.

This included the Ethiopian anchor womans shoe coming off as she tried to start her final leg. The USA faded from third to eighth on the final stage. In the melee, Britain charged through from ninth at the end of stage one to take bronze medals.

Tom Keen, Alex Millard, Adam Fogg and Beth Morley had the biggest smiles in Belgrade and ended up as the only non-African athletes of the day to make a podium.

The Exeter Express and Cumbrian cannonball

Innes FitzGerald and Jess Bailey both excelled with top 20 places in the under-20 womens race but they arrived at the finish line separated by only a stride or two after employing very different tactics.

As the Americans might say, FitzGerald was on the offence while Bailey played defence. FitzGerald races aggressively at the best of times, so with the tantalising prospect of a top 10 place the Devon runner committed herself early by trying to stay with the lead pack of east Africans. Bailey on the other hand ran with her head more than her heart, using restraint in the early stages before powering through in the second half of the race.

They were both pleased with 17th and 18th place and will learn much from the experience. Dont forget, Mo Farah was only 25th and 59th as junior and there are countless other examples like this.

Whats next for them? The final few weeks of A-level preparations!

Age-defying athleticism

The most mind-boggling result of the day was Marta Alemayo of Ethiopia winning the under-20 womens race at the age of just 15, although she turns 16 on April 8.

Amazingly it is not a record, though. The youngest individual winner is Lydia Cheromei, the 1991 champion, at 13 years and 317 days.

When it comes to team golds, Elizabeth Cheptanui won an under-20 gold as part of her Kenya squad in 1994 at 13 years and 199 days, although current rules rule out anyone younger than 16 in the year of competition from competing.

Yes, I was expecting to do well, and I am not surprised with the win, said Alemayo, who was only fourth at the Ethiopian trials. The win is not important only in itself, but it will also help set up the rest of my career.

Date of births among east African athletes is, excuse the pun, an age-old issue. There can be passport problems and to add to the confusion the Ethiopians even follow a different calendar to the rest of the world.

When Haile Gebrselassie first broke on to the scene as a junior, cynics said he looked too old to be an under-20 athlete. But this was clearly nonsense as, years later, he was still running world-class times aged 40, which, if the cynics were correct, would have made him even older!

With Alemayo, we could very well have witnessed a prodigious talent who will go on to win Olympic titles. Whatever her age, one things for sure she can run like the wind.

Bad luck for British women

One of the saddest sights in Belgrade was seeing Lauren Heyes being chaperoned off the course after DNFing. The 33-year-old last raced in the World Cross in 2013, whereas in 2009 and competing under her maiden name of Howarth she was top Brit in the under-20 race in 13th.

She was unlucky to be left off the GB team to begin with. Just send full teams! her husband and fellow international runner Andrew Heyes said on social media. However she was able to replace Jess Warner-Judd at the last minute and joined Abbie Donnelly et al in the squad.

Heyes said she simply went off too fast and paid the price. Even unluckier, though, is Warner-Judd. When it comes to the World Cross she is truly cursed.

Statistician Ian Hodge says Warner-Judd has never actually run the World Cross despite being a prolific and regular racer and having been in the frame, selection-wise, to potentially run seven World Cross events!

Shame on the European no-shows

The number of European nations missing the World Cross Country Champs is embarrassing. World Athletics president Seb Coe is non-plussed by the situation too.

The roll call of no-shows in Belgrade Italy, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland among others.

British fans often slate UK Athletics if there arent full teams, but imagine if you lived in a country where quietly boycotting the World Cross is the norm?

Weve got work to do, says Coe. Id like to see more European nations travelling to these championships. Cross country, properly used in the modern training regimen, is an ageless and timeless concept.

Will Tallahassee in two years time be any different? Dont hold your breath.

Anyone for cross-country at the Olympics? Or trail running perhaps?

The topic of cross country returning to the Olympics surprisingly didnt really come up much in Belgrade. You can usually bet on it being brought up at the pre-event press conference but this time it didnt. It is of course an Olympic year too.

Coe has been pushing for its inclusion for a number of years. Will he achieve his goal before he steps down as World Athletics president?

READ MORE: World Cross 2024 news

Interestingly one of the competitors in Belgrade was trail and ultra-running specialist Tom Evans. The 2022 UTMB podium placer and 2023 Western States 100-mile winner finished 49th in the mens race for Britain and suggested there cant be many runners who have raced the worlds top 100-miler(s) and the toughest 10km.

His next big race is on the trails as well, with the European Off-Road Running Champs in Annecy at the end of May. Given its momentum, is there a chance trail running could beat cross-country running in the race for Olympic inclusion?