Britton on a learning curve

Athletics World Cross Country Championships: Was it Paul Tergat, Kenya's five-time champion, who said the World Cross Country is "the ultimate test for any runner worth his name, a combination of sprinting, trotting and distance running, where you run with two eyes - one on the course ahead and the other on the ground to look where you are placing your feet"?

It could easily have been someone else who said it because anyone who has ever run this race would agree. And if there was a truly ultimate test for any runner then today's World Cross Country should be it, when for the first time in its 35-year history the event takes place in Kenya, the nation that has dominated it over the past two decades.

It's also reverting to the traditional winner-takes-all race, with the short course event mercifully abandoned. Given it's happening nearly 5,000 miles away on Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa there may be limited Irish interest, but that shouldn't disguise the fact it will present a worrying reflection on the state of Irish distance running.

Fionnuala Britton, the highly promising 22-year-old from Wicklow, will start the senior women's race as the sole Irish competitor - which means for the first time in the history of the event there is no Irish entry in the men's race. It suggests that these athletes are either running scared or else no longer good enough. It's likely a combination of the two.

What makes the lack of any presence on the men's side particularly disheartening is that it effectively ends the great Irish tradition in the race. Long before the IAAF took charge of the event in 1973 there were always prominent Irish finishers in what was the old International Cross Country Championships, the most memorable being Tim Smythe's victory at Baldolyle racecourse in 1931, the team bronze medals in 1949, and Derek Graham's silver medal in 1966.

The highpoint, naturally, was John Treacy's back-to-back titles in 1978 and 1979, the latter famously won at Limerick racecourse in front of some 25,000 spectators. Ireland also took second in the men's team race. Since then the men's fortunes have gone into decline, and instead Irish women have made it happen, starting with Catherina McKiernan's four successive silver medals, before Sonia O'Sullivan's brilliant double in 1998.

"I would look at this year's situation as a once-off," says Treacy. " If it was in Europe I'm sure we'd have a few of the men going. I was in Kenya a few years ago myself, and it is a very difficult place to run. The lead pack after two miles was 50 athletes, and there was two seconds between them. So it is very difficult for our athletes to go out to Kenya, and compete against them.

"And there is nothing more discouraging than going to a World Cross Country and getting eaten alive. I still think the future is bright. I was at the schools cross country a few weeks ago and saw some fantastic young athletes, of a very high standard.

"I just don't think we'll ever get back to where we were in Limerick in 1979. The event has moved on substantially since then. We can still produce some good individuals, and definitely produce medals at the European Cross Country Championships. That would be the goal and objective." Treacy's attitude is a little surprising given he always maintained that cross country was a key component of his development as a world-class runner. In fact Treacy pitted himself against the best of the Africans in Morocco in 1975 when taking third in the junior men's race, and that clearly helped set him up to win the senior title three years later.

Anyhow, there's no such defeatist attitude in the way Britton is approaching the race. She left for Mombasa on Wednesday, with a suitcase full of her own food and only team manager Anne Keenan Buckley for company. She knows she'll do very well to make the top 30, and yet her coach, Pat Diskin, is convinced she's doing the right thing in making the long trip into soaring temperatures.

"I think it's very important you serve your apprenticeship in this sport," says Diskin, "and I'm sure the experience Fionnuala will get in Kenya will stand to her in the years ahead. Even as soon as next year, when the World Cross Country is in Edinburgh.

"She is very determined to make it to the highest level, and wants to give it her best shot. The only way you will do that is run against the best in the world. It is going to be very difficult out there, especially with the heat, but I think if you look at the road she is going on then this is all part of making progress."

There are already several parallels between Britton and McKiernan - the exceptionally light frame being among them - and it's worth recalling that McKiernan finished 76th, 40th and 65th at senior level before her first silver medal in 1992.

Kenya, meanwhile, will definitely produce medals this afternoon, but the big question is whether or not they can deny Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele another gold to add to his 11 previous titles - including double titles for the past five years. If Bekele does prevail it will surely be the hardest won gold medal of all.