World cross country champion Hellen Obiri is tipped to take the honours in Saturday's Northern Ireland International Cross Country meeting at the Billy Neill MBE Country Park in Dundonald.
The event is part of a World Athletics Silver Cross Country Tour and also incorporates the Celtic Games, Home Countries and British Cross Challenge.
Underfoot conditions could be challenging for the some 600 athletes competing, but 32-year-old Kenyan Obiri has already poved her class in slippery conditions having defeated Didi of Ethiopia two years ago in Denmark.
Obiri is better known for her track achievements which have made her one of the successful world class athletes in recent years.
This has included two world 5,000m titles and two Olympic Silver medals; the latest being in the Tokyo Olympics where she lost to multi gold medallist Sifan Hassan.
The English challenge will come from 30-year-old Kate Avery who has an outstanding two individual European medals to her credit. She was also seventh the last Dundonald outing two years ago.
Just behind her in that race was Scotland’s Mhari MacLennan who should do well again along with Ireland’s Una Britton.The local NI challenge should come from Armagh’s Fionnuala Ross and Nikita Burke who was 3rd in the recent big Seeley Cup 10k.
The Men’s 10k event should be a battle between Kenyan pair Vincent Keter and Kamar Etiang. Keter, 19, is the World Junior 1,500m Champion with a personal best of under 3 mins 38 secs.
Even that time is surpassed by 19-year-old Etiang who has a World Junior leading time of 3.33.12.
An interesting entry is Belfast’s Stephen Scullion who has carried all before him in marathons in recent times. In 2020 the 33-year-old famously took the Irish marathon record from Olympic medallist John Treacy with a time of 2.09.49.
The Under Armour athlete has been taking time out after the Tokyo Olympics before a challenging year which includes either the World Champs or Commonwealth Games.
Other key athletes who should feature include England’s Zak Mahamed who finished a superb ninth in the recent Euro Champs in Dublin. Also competing is team mate Hugo Milner who won the Cardiff Cross Challenge.
Main local challenge should come from new star Eskander Turki, Conor Duffy who was 17th two years ago and NI’s Matthew Neill who was runner up in the Seeley Cup in December.
Racing starts at Dundonald at 10.55am with the Senior International races from 2.15pm.
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