FLORIDA, USA, Jan 10 – Agnes Ngetich ensured that a 10th successive senior women’s title for Kenya never looked in doubt as she secured a processional victory at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships Tallahassee 26 on Saturday (10).
Winning by 42 seconds, the world 10km record-holder achieved the second-biggest winning margin in any race in World Cross Country Championships history. She clocked 31:28 for the 10km race to clinch her first global title ahead of Uganda’s Joy Cheptoyek and Ethiopia’s Senayet Getachew.
Cheptoyek, who finished seventh in the 10,000m at the World Championships in Tokyo, became Uganda’s first ever individual senior women’s medallist at the World Cross Country Championships. Clocking 32:10, she secured the silver by three seconds ahead of Getachew, who adds senior bronze to the U20 gold she won in 2023.
Getachew led Ethiopia to the team title – the nation’s 13th senior women’s team title overall and first since 2019. She was followed over the finish line by Asayech Ayichew, who also successfully stepped up to the senior stage after finishing second in the U20 race in 2024, and Ethiopia’s scoring team was completed by world U20 3000m champion Aleshign Baweke in fifth and Alem Tsadik in seventh.
Kenya clinched team silver and Uganda got bronze.
Beatrice Chebet had won the past two titles but with the double Olympic champion missing the 2026 season to start a family, Ngetich was on a mission to retain the title for Kenya.
Always to the fore, she was initially joined by Getachew, Ayichew and Cheptoyek and that quartet completed the first of the five 2km loops in 6:03. Clearly feeling good, Ngetich soon left her rivals behind and she took off on the second loop, creating a gap of 17 seconds on that chase trio – led by Cheptoyek – by the end of that circuit.
Ngetich increased her advantage to 25 seconds by the halfway point, and her lead only continued to grow – to 31 seconds by the end of the third loop and to 40 seconds with the final 2km circuit to go.
Ayichew had been dropped by Cheptoyek and Getachew by that point and was followed by a four-strong pack featuring Tsadik, Baweke, Uganda’s Rispa Cherop and Kenya’s Maurine Chebor.
At the front of the race, Ngetich carried on unchallenged and she strode over the finish line in 31:28 to add gold to the bronze she claimed at the 2023 World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst and the fourth-place finish she achieved in Belgrade the following year.
Her winning margin of 42 seconds is only beaten by Grete Waitz’s victory by 44 seconds in 1980.
“I am so happy with this title,” said Ngetich. “I now have an individual title and I am proud to become the 10th woman to win world cross country gold for Kenya. Beatrice (Chebet) told me to bring the (gold) medal back home. This title is special.”
A bit further back, the battle was on between Cheptoyek and Getachew. Cheptoyek managed the ‘Alligator Alley’ log stretch slightly better than Getachew when they passed that section for the final time, and she edged ahead, securing silver in 32:10 to Getachew’s 32:13. Ayichew got fourth place in 32:44 and was followed by Baweke and Cherop.
Ednah Kurgat, the 2017 NCAA cross-country champion, led the host nation squad as she finished 10th in 33:28.
