Reception
Having won every gold medal on offer, as well as a 1–2 in the women's race and every junior individual medal, Kenya were perceived as being by far the dominant force of the championships. However, while this success was lauded as a great achievement for Kenya by commentators such as former champion John Ngugi, this dominance came with a fall in both interest and participation from Western countries. Nations with distinguished histories in long distance running, such as Russia, Germany and Finland, sent no senior athletes to the championships at all, while the sole runners for Belgium and the Netherlands (Atelaw Yeshetela and Hilda Kibet) were both born in East Africa.
The secretary general of the IAAF, Pierre Weiss, acknowledged the lack of European teams present at the competition, but said that problem was solely with world championships participation and not the sport of cross country running as a whole as the 2009 European Cross Country Championships had been successful. IAAF president Lamine Diack stated that European runners needed to learn from the East Africans to improve their performances. However, the decline in European interest had a direct effect on the scheduling of the world championships event, which had been changed from an annual to a biennial format by a large majority of votes at the 2009 IAAF Congress.
Read more about this topic: 2010 IAAF World Cross Country Championships
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