International Cross Country Championships 1903 to 1972

[XCrunner]

Readers may be interested in viewing a website containing the complete results for the International Cross Country Championships from 1903 to 1972, i.e. the ICCU era.

http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/tomtytom/index.html

This website contains the names of the athletes who have participated in this event as well as the very first international in 1898, the Women's events, the Junior Men's events and the Olympic Games cross country events in 1912, 1920 and 1924.

Viewers comments, corrections or suggested additions for this site would be appreciated.

It would be very helpful if we can complete the outstanding first names and dates of birth for the listed athletes. Please click on the Searchlist facts 1903-1972 on the website for details.

There are 20 English, 9 Scottish, 65 Welsh, 9 Northern Irish and 95 Irish first names still missing. Your knowledge and help would be appreciated.

[Beatrix Kiddo]

Interesting site. Why did you do it and why stop at the beginning of the IAAF era?

[XCrunner]

The World Cross Country Championships from 1973 to 2001 have already been published by the IAAF in a separate book "The Toughest Race In The World"

Link here

[XCrunner]

Interesting site. Why did you do it and why stop at the beginning of the IAAF era?

The IAAF era cross country championships have now been added to this website

http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/tomtytom/index.html

[Pelle3]

Cool site. Pointer: add race distance in a column on the athletes history, like here, where you have a column for race.

[Max]

Believe it or not but the last secretary of the Scottish X.C. Union threw out all the old records &c. when amalgamation with Scottish Athletics took place.

Regards,

Max.

[XCrunner]

Cool site. Pointer: add race distance in a column on the athletes history.

Race distances in cross country events are neither very accurate nor really relevent as the terrain and weather condtions have a major impact on the severity of the course.

I have a database containing stated race distances and the winning time for each International cross country event from 1903 to 1972 and there is little correlation between the distance stated and the winning times

General distances and range of winning times:

1903 to 1906 : 8 to 8.5 miles (13k - 14k) - 40 min to 48 min

1906 to 1925 : 10 miles (16k) - 54 min to 64 min

1926 to 1962 : 9 miles (14.5k) - 44 min to 54 min

1963 to 1972 : 7.5 miles (12k) - 35 min to 40 min

[Pelle3]

Am not trying to compare courses or eras, just wanted to get an idea of how far these athletes ran in their championships.

[Alf Shrubb]

A serious question... I have a medal from the 1905 World Cross Country meet that may be either some sort of team medal or an individual one. Does anyone have any examples of medals from these early meets that we might be able to compare? Thanks.

[XCrunner]

A serious question... I have a medal from the 1905 World Cross Country meet that may be either some sort of team medal or an individual one. Does anyone have any examples of medals from these early meets that we might be able to compare? Thanks.

At the meeting of the International Cross Country Union on 28 March 1904 it was resolved that a special design of six gold and enamelled medals, bearing the arms of the four countries, would be awarded to the winning team members and the first man home, if not in the winning team, should be awarded a similar medal.
(source The Field 2 APril 1904, p568a)

The four nations were England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

England won the 1905 event with Albert Aldridge being the individual winner. The first non-English man home was Tom Hynes from Ireland in second place.

See http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/tomtytom/index.html for the complete results.

[SQUACKEE]

A serious question... I have a medal from the 1905 World Cross Country meet that may be either some sort of team medal or an individual one. Does anyone have any examples of medals from these early meets that we might be able to compare? Thanks.

You should...ahh...send...send me the medal, see. That way i can check it out for....ah you.

[Alf Shrubb]

A serious question... I have a medal from the 1905 World Cross Country meet that may be either some sort of team medal or an individual one. Does anyone have any examples of medals from these early meets that we might be able to compare? Thanks.

You should...ahh...send...send me the medal, see. That way i can check it out for....ah you.

Not a problem... I''ll have my people in Nigeria send you a letter with instructions; you just need to provide your bank account numbers so that we can, um, put some insurance money in escrow... After a 17 year waiting period, I'll be happy to ship you the medal...