World Cross Country Championships 2026: Megan Keith leads British hopes

Few people forget their cross-country school days, walking across shadowy playgrounds on a freezing winter afternoon, always wearing clothes sourced from a lost property fund.

While parkruns, trail races, and marathons are booming in popularity among the masses, the appetite of the general public across the country is almost entirely absent, likely influenced by those negative connotations of the school day.

At the elite level, it is similarly avoided.

“The status was nowhere near the time I did it,” said Tim Hutchings, the last British man to win a World Cross Country medal when he took his second silver in 1989.

“There were several winters where I was among the best cross-country runners in the world, and I would go to Europe and win races in Spain, France, Italy and Germany, and it was a very lucrative circuit. It was a very worthwhile and recognized sport in its own right. Now, there’s no money in it.”

The lack of financial incentives is critical. British Athletics funding is particularly linked to its track and road offerings in the Olympic and Paralympic disciplines – a key consideration in Keith’s eyes beyond cross country.

UK Sport began distributing National Lottery funding to Olympic and Paralympic sports in May 1997, allocating it according to medal potential. Before then, athletics was largely amateur until the 1980s, when it was left to athletes to generate their own income if they wanted to become professionals.

Other factors also influenced the decline in cross country’s standing. The dominance of African runners has changed the perception of competitiveness, with no one from outside the continent able to reach the men’s world cross-country podium for more than two decades – or the women’s podium for 12 years.

At both ends of the competitive spectrum, this system is largely ignored and unpopular, but within the hardcore athletics club community, it remains powerful.

More than 5,000 people took part in last year’s English National Cross Country Championships, while the Surrey, Birmingham, Metropolitan and Chiltern Cross Country Leagues routinely welcome in excess of 1,500 competitors to their monthly events.

All courses vary across the country and the distances in each event vary, although a uniform length of 10 km has been set at the World Championships as of 2019.