At a press conference on Wednesday, elite race manager Zigor Díez announced the names of the athletes in contention at the 77th Cross Internacional Juan Muguerza, the fifth leg of the World Athletics Cross Country Permit series in the Spanish town of Elgoibar on Sunday (12).

A decade after winning the short course title at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka, Ethiopia’s Gelete Burka began her potential path to Kampala next March with an unopposed victory at the Cross de la Constitucion in Aranda de Duero on Saturday (3).

Uganda’s Timothy Toroitich will return to Alcobendas as the man to beat at the 35th Cross Internacional de la Constitución on Sunday (27), the second of three Spanish races scheduled for the 2016-17 IAAF Cross Country Permit series.

Pauline Korikwiang continued her comeback to top-level racing with a commanding victory at the fourth leg of the AK/KCB Cross Country Series in Iten on Saturday (5).

You have to go back to 1991 for the last time an athlete from somewhere other than Kenya or Ethiopia won the world cross country junior men’s title, but Uganda might have the man to end this quarter century-long dominance at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Guiyang 2015 in the shape of Joshua Cheptegei.