What do you think of our proposal to make World XC the primary way to qualify for Worlds/Olympics in the 10,000?

Winter Olympic rules require that the sport must be contested on snow or ice.

We should be picking the 1500m team off a some massively down hill mile… And the XC team off a mount Washington race.

Seriously we all get that distance guys like XC but how delusional do you think it should be used for track? Let the top 12 in on time and make the next 50 races in 2 10000 for the last spots… reality is that countries like the USA really should only sent 2 people most years. We just don’t have the depth….

Heres an unprecedented CRAZY IDEA. Change the rule

Whatever lets Jonathan nail the Q is all right by me.

I don't necessarily agree that it should be the primary way to qualify, but note that 8 of the 25 10,000m spots for Paris are assigned based on World Cross Country rankings. This issue with that is pretty clear: most of those currently sitting in Q spots did not race World Cross, so if only those 8 spots were based on World Cross placing rather than World Cross Rankings, that would be a start.

Agreed. Like some other people have said, the best thing seems to be making it another Olympic event. Just put it far enough away from the running of the 10k on the schedule that elites who want to do both can do so. The team element of xc would be something really interesting that the track events (besides relays) lack

If views of a city are so cool to you, why don’t you fly there and rent a car?

Terrible idea. Keep cross country and track seperate.

Substantial prize money to the top 5 teams and top 25 individuals.

Around where I live there have been many late season XC meets contested in the snow. Just make sure there’s snow on the course. There’s not an issue with XC skiing. If the snow is light in the course they just make it.

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It seems that the IOC pays $50K and only to the Gold Medal winner. If the winner shares his prize money, that would that would be $1K each for winning team members and top 25 individuals.

I'm pretty sure it straight up just doesn't qualify under the technical definition of a Winter Olympic sport. They all are supposed to take place on either the snow or ice, which cross country doesn't except in some outliers

Posters on Letsrun have a weird obsession with cross country. Not many people care about cross country, it's very niche. Track is way more mainstream, and road races are way more mainstream. It would be dumb to pull any focus away from the track or roads and make a failed attempt at making cross country a thing.

A 10k road race would have better results for viewers and translate more to track than a cross country race. Which is why I'm fine with road 10ks counting for track 10,000m qualifying. But cross country isn't a good indicator. Most of the people qualifying for the olympics based on cross country ranking will be at the back of the results in Paris.

that looks awesome

I agree completely. XC is run in the autumn / winter so it naturally fits into the Winter Olympics.

Well change the ‘technical definition’ so it does.

Well change the ‘technical definition’ so it does.

This is such a profoundly stupid idea that I am not going to bother arguing against it. Some real ways to make World XC important:

1) Big prize money

2) Big advertising directed towards high school athletes including fun interviews with the top runners and footage of them training and having fun in their home towns

3) Make sure that the hosts are going to go all-out to produce an exciting, spectator-friendly event that looks cool both in person and on TV... see Aurhus 2019

4) Individual countries supporting their top runners with lucrative appearance fees and hefty bonuses for performing well as a team or individually

5) Find a rich superfan like Rex Sinquefield in chess to support cross country with his own money without expecting a profit... Lord Coe is a clown

6) Put cross country back in the Olympics

If we actually had people at USATF with any interest other than skimming money off the top, we could easily give $25k or more to each world cross participant from the US with bonuses for top 10 finishes or something.