in
Albufeira, Portugal In 1819, boys at
Shrewsbury School asked their headmaster, Dr Butler, if they could form a fox-hunting club, and he refused. The boys therefore formed an alternative club where instead of riding horses and chasing hounds they ran across country, with a small number of boys starting first to simulate the prey, and the rest following after an interval as though they were the chasing pack of dogs. Thus the terminology of hunting with dogs became associated with cross country running, with the leaders being called the hares, and the chasing pack the hounds. The hares carried a sack of paper scraps that they dropped to simulate their scent and provide a trail for the hounds to follow, and this sport was called
paper chasing, or Hare and Hounds. Becoming popular at the school by 1831 it had become part of the curriculum, with several courses of different lengths. The original course of a little more than three miles was over some land owned by a farmer called Tuck, and is to this day known simply as Tucks. These boys did not invent the idea of running across country, which had been known for centuries. Schools started the process of turning an adventurous and athletic pastime into an organised sport. The Scottish
King Malcolm III is said to have summoned men to race up Craig Choinnich overlooking
Braemar with the aim of finding the fastest runner in Scotland to be his royal messenger, and a 1540 manuscript in the
British Museum describes a run across Roodee, also known as
Chester Racecourse, for a prize of "six glayves of silver."
William Shakespeare, writing in the early 17th century, has
Sir John Falstaff tell Prince Henry, "I would give a thousand pounds, I could run as fast as thou canst," and
Samuel Pepys in his diary for 10 August 1660 describes going to Hyde Park to see, "a fine foot-race three times round the Park between an Irishman and Crow, that was once my Lord Claypoole's footman." In his diary for the year 1720, whilst he was an undergraduate at
Oxford university, Sir Erasmus Phillips (1699–1743) later the MP for Haverfordwest, describes how he rode out to Woodstock Park one afternoon where he was one of, "a most prodigious concourse of people," who saw a four-mile foot race between the duke of Wharton's footman and Mr Diston's footman." In July 1826 ''Bell's Life'' reported that, "Yesterday se'nnight a match of running, between the gentlemen of Milton and the gentlemen of Chart, was won by the latter." By 1834, Hare and Hounds was known at
Rugby school, and their route, the "Barby Hill Run", was described in an 1857 novel, ''
Tom Brown's School Days'', by
Thomas Hughes, who had gone to Rugby but was by then an influential politician. At
Eton College, the chasing pack were known as Beagles, but in many other places they are called Harriers (a breed of dog used largely for hunting hares). At
Harrow School they ran across farmland at Pinner, but Winchester school did not start cross country until sometime in the 1880s. In 1837, Rugby School started a longer run of approximately twelve miles known as the Crick Run because it goes out to the village of Crick and returns to the school. This has become an annual tradition and continues to this day. By the early 1850s, athletic clubs had started holding their own paper chases as a form of training, the sport was seen at
Oxford University by that time. A national championship was first held on 7 December 1867 on
Wimbledon Common in south-west London. The course was about 3.5 miles, through a bog and over hills and started in the evening so runners had to navigate in the dark. Many runners went off course, and it was declared void and had to be rerun. The championship has been held over the distance of 10 miles (16,093 metres) since 1877. In 1869,
Thames Hare and Hounds, the world's first cross country running club, was formed in the same area of south west London, and the same year William C. Vosburgh of New York introduced the sport to the United States. and
Harvard University held races from the same year. Three area associations were formed to administer the sport in their region of England. The Midland Counties Amateur Cross-Country Association was formed in 1879, the Northern Cross-Country Association in 1882, and the Southern Counties Cross-Country Association was established in 1883. Then also in 1883 the National Cross-Country Union was formed, with Walter Rye, the founder of Thames Hare and Hounds, as first President. In 1933 this was changed to the English Cross-Country Union because by then the other constituent countries of the United Kingdom had their own cross country associations. The Scottish Cross Country Union was formed in 1886 and held their first national championship at Lanark in March of that year, and the United States followed suit in 1887. Over time the sacks of paper scraps gradually got discarded and courses came to be marked with flags, lines on the grass, bunting, and marshalls, with races held on farm land, through forests, and over various forms of mixed terrain with championships frequently being held on golf courses and horse racing courses. In 1898, Harold Hardwick of Salford Harriers took a team across to France for a cross country match and in the process invented international cross country running as a sport. The
International Cross Country Union was formed in 1903, and the four home nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales started a match in that year which became a true international event in 1907 when France sent a team to compete. Other European countries sent teams during the 1920s and Tunisia sent a team in 1958. The idea for a cross country relay originated in Paris in 1903, when the members of Stadte Francaise invited South London Harriers to Paris for a relay race of approximately fourteen miles to be held on Boxing Day, 26 December 1903. It is not known whether South London Harriers took up the invitation or whether the race actually took place. The first cross country relay for which there is definite evidence was organised by Hampstead Harriers at their club headquarters, the Green Man pub in East Finchley, also on Boxing Day, Wednesday 26 December 1906. The race had five teams of three men who each ran around two miles over a snow-covered out and back course. The first man to finish was G. Banbrook of team three in a time of 41:42 1/5. Women were largely excluded from the sport for many years due to a widespread but false perception that it was injurious to their health and reproductive ability. Women were also excluded because they did not receive formal education, and the sport started largely at schools, from which women were excluded—women first went to university in England in 1868. There were races for women, but they were few and far between. At the Longtown Sports in
Cumbria in June 1851 the prize for the women's race was three times that for the men's, and the first three women all got the same prize, whereas the second-placed man only got half the winner's prize. Women's sports clubs and formal competitions for women's teams did not arrive until the 1920s. France was the first country to hold national championships for women, in 1918, the first English championships for women were held at Hoo Park, Luton, in February 1927, and women were allowed to participate informally in international cross country only from 1931. There were not even officially any rules for women's cross country until 1962 and their races were not considered championships until 1967.
Olympic Games ,
Ville Ritola, and
Paavo Nurmi (on left) competing in the individual cross country race at the
1924 Summer Olympics in Paris; due to the hot weather, which exceeded , only 15 out of 38 competitors finished the race. Cross country was contested as a team and individual event at the
1912,
1920 and
1924 Summer Olympics.
Sweden took gold in 1912, and
Finland, led by
Paavo Nurmi, captured the gold in 1920 and 1924. During the 1924 race in the Paris heat wave, only 15 of the 38 competitors reached the finish. Eight of those were taken away on stretchers. while another fainted 50 meters from the finish. José Andía and
Edvin Wide were reported dead, and medics spent hours trying to find all the competitors who had blacked out along the course. There have been recent efforts to bring cross country running back to the Olympic Games. In 2020,
World Athletics President
Sebastian Coe pushed to bring the sport to the
2024 Summer Olympics in
Paris, but the
IOC rejected this proposal. Once the 2024 Summer Olympics arrived, Coe pushed for the sport to instead be included in the
Winter Olympics, with efforts to make the sport appear in the
2030 and
2034 Winter Olympics in the
French Alps and
Salt Lake City respectively. Coe later stated he thought there was a "good chance" his proposals for cross country running would be approved by the IOC, and that "it would give Africa a proper presence at the Winter Games".
World championships Beginning in
1973, the IAAF began hosting the renamed
World Cross Country Championships each year. In
1975, the
New Zealand men and United States women won, marking the first championships by non-European countries. In
1981 an African nation (
Ethiopia) won the men's race for the first time, and
a decade later an African nation (
Kenya) won the women's race for the first time. Ethiopia or Kenya has captured every men's title since 1981 and every women's title since
2001. Through 2010, Kenya has won 40 World Cross Country Championships and Ethiopia has won 23.
Notable athletes •
Kenenisa Bekele won both short and long World Cross Country course titles in the same year five times (2002–2006), after a junior men victory and senior long course silver in 2001. The IAAF calls him the "greatest ever male cross country runner to have graced the sport." •
Edward Cheserek is the three-time individual winner of the NCAA Division I championship in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Cheserek is the only athlete to win three straight individual NCAA championships. ==Regional organizations==