Dutch athletics will stage the highlight of its cross country season on Sunday when the 52th International loket.nl Warandecross takes place in Tilburg.
The European Athletics Cross Country Permit Meeting is staging a Nations Cup, both for senior and under 23 runners, and many of Europe’s top runners will head for the city that also staged the 2006 SPAR European Cross Country Championships just two weeks ahead of this year’s event in Albufeira, Portugal, on December 12.
The senior men’s 10km race sees competitors from 13 countries on the start line with attention centred particularly on Sweden’s Mustafa Mohamed, who won medals at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships for three consecutive years from 2006 to 2008.
Mohamed started his streak with a bronze in Tilburg four years ago and, after missing last year’s Championships due to a knee operation, he is looking to get back on the podium in Portugal.
Also in the field is Belgium’s talented but often erratic Atelaw Bekele, who was the under 23 bronze medallist in Dublin 12 months ago.
Local eyes will be on Michel Butter, who was second last year.
Butter plans to move up to the marathon next year and the 2007 European Athletics U23 Championships 10,000m silver medallist tends to thrive in the mud. He was ninth at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Brussels two years ago.
Moldova’s Iaroslav Muşinschi, Europe’s fastest marathon runner this year when winning the Dusseldorf Marathon in a national record of 2:08:32 in May, won in Tilburg last year and is also back to defend his title while Germany’s 2010 European Athletics Championships 3000m steeplechase finalist Steffen Uliczka is also in the field.
The federations from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Sweden are using the Tilburg meeting as a selection races for the 2010 SPAR European Cross Country Championships.
However, one man in Tilburg who has already booked his ticket to Portugal is Belgium’s Jeroen D’Hoedt.
D’Hoedt won the gold medal in the junior race at the 2009 SPAR European Cross Country Championships. Now 20, he will run in the under 23 race in Albufeira in two weeks time
However, he might not have things his own way to be the top under 23 man in Tilburg as the Netherlands’ Abdi Nageeye, seventh in last year’s under 23 race in Dublin and just one year older, than D’Hoedt is also running.
The senior women will do battle over 8.1km and the race could develop into a duel between local heroine Adrienne Herzog, the 2009 SPAR Cross Country Championships bronze medallist, and the Belgium-based Ethiopian Almensch Belete, who has beaten all-comers in races across the border this winter.
The pair finished second and third respectively 12 months ago, behind the Portuguese winner Dulce Felix.
Among the other likely contenders for a high place are Belgium’s Xenia Luxem, and Veerle Dejaeghere, Denmark’s Maria Sig Moller and Germany’s Verena Dreier, who won a good quality race on home soil in Darmstädt last Sunday.
Defending Dutch cross country champion Miranda Boonstra will also share some of the cheers with Herzog.
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