World Cross-Country 2017: Work on course steady

Work on this year's World Cross-country competition course in Kololo is steadily progressing.

Organisers of the March 26 event have promised that the course will be ready in a week.

This is to allow the same course to be used for the national cross-country on January 14. Uganda peoples Defence Forces Engineering Department is in charge of the works.

"We want the national event to be a replica of the world meet," explained Uganda Athletics Federation secretary Beatrice Ayikoru.

World athletics body also wants to see a successful national event. "That will be one way of judging our preparedness for the world meet,' explained UAF president Domenic Otucet.

IAF for the matter will have its vice president Malboum Kalkaba in attendance at Kololo at the national meet. The event will be broadcast live on national television- UBC.

The IAAF World Cross Country Championships is the most important competition in international cross country running.

Initially held annually and organised by International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), it was inaugurated in 1973, when it replaced the International Cross Country Championships.

It was an annual competition until 2011, when the IAAF changed it to a biennial event.

Uganda will be the fourth African country to stage the world meet.

Morocco hosted its first in 1995 before South Africa in 1996 and South Africa again in 1998. Next was Kenya in 2007.