Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically 4–12 kilometres (2.5–7.5 mi) long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road. It is both an individual and a team sport, runners are judged on individual times and a points scoring method for teams. Both men and women of all ages compete in cross country, which usually takes place during autumn and winter, and can include weather conditions of rain, sleet, snow or hail, and a wide range of temperatures.
Cross country running is one of the disciplines under the umbrella sport of athletics, long-distance track and road running. Although open-air running competitions are pre-historic, the rules and traditions of cross country racing emerged in Britain. The English championship became the first national competition in 1876 and the International Cross Country Championships was held for the first time in 1903. Since 1973 the foremost elite competition has been the IAAF World Cross Country Championships.
Read more about Cross Country Running: Race Course, Scoring, Strategy, Equipment, History, Regional Organization, Variations
Famous quotes containing the words cross, country and/or running:
“But soft, behold! lo where it comes again!
I’ll cross it though it blast me. Stay, illusion!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I fasted for some forty days on bread and buttermilk
For passing round the bottle with girls in rags or silk,
In country shawl or Paris cloak, had put my wits astray,
And what’s the good of women for all that they can say
Is fol de rol de rolly O.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“What was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself—life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)