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Cardiff Cross Challenge 2025 - Preview
07/11/2025 00:00, I Mewn Blog /
Olympians and world championship athletes will once again rub shoulders with club runners of all abilities at the Cardiff Cross Challenge on Saturday.
For the fifth year, the hugely popular event boasts World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold Label status - the only race in the UK to do so.
As such it has once again attracted an impressive line-up from around to globe to Llandaff Fields on the outskirts of the city centre.
This year’s event has the added prestige of hosting the selection trial for Great Britain’s mixed relay team to compete at the European Cross Country Championships in Portugal next month.
Athletes from the length and breadth of the UK will also do battle as the event features the first fixture of the annual British Athletics Cross Challenge Series.
Meanwhile, club runners from across south Wales and the south west of England will contest the second fixture of the John H. Collins Gwent Cross Country League.
In all, more than 2000 competitors aged from under-11 to over 65 will take part in what promises to be an action-packed 11-race programme contested over a fast, twisting and technical course considered to be one of the best in the UK.
For the latest staging of the event, which was first held in 1997 inside Cardiff Castle’s walls, entries have flooded in from as far afield as, Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, Canada, Spain, Denmark the Netherlands and Ireland.
The trials for the GB mixed relay team, run over the relatively short cross country distance of one mile, have attracted some of the UK’s top athletes.
Among a hugely competitive women’s field, the stand out entries include Paris Olympian Revée Walcott-Nolan (Luton AC), who also reached the semi-final of 1500m at September’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
The 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships 1500m bronze medallist will be joined by the likes of Sarah Calvart (Livingston AC), who won the 1500m title at this summer’s UK Athletics Championships in Birmingham.
The men’s race is equally stacked with high quality entries including Will Barnicoat (Aldershot, Farnham and District AC), who has impeccable cross country pedigree.
Barnicoat won the SPAR European Under-20 Cross Country Championships in 2020 and the European Under-23 title in 2023 and 2024.
Other hopefuls will include Cameron Boyek (Morpeth Central) who won a European mixed relay gold back in 2017.
The Welsh challenge, over what will be a fast mile course, is led by James Henneghan (Pontypridd Roadents) who was part of the GB team which finished fifth in the mixed relay at the 2022 European Cross Country Championships.
While the trial races are a domestic showdown, there is a distinctly international flavour to the longer races, which have attracted a strong field of African and European stars to challenge the home entries.
There may be a feeling of déjà vu in the senior women’s 6,400m race, where the podium finishers in 2024 will all be back to do battle once again.
Charity Cherop (Uganda) will be looking to retain her title, but Sheila Jebet (Kenya) will be looking for revenge having been edged out by just one second last time around. Kate Axford (Belgrave Harriers) will be keen to make the podium once again.
The Welsh challenge will be led by Cari Hughes (Cardiff Athletics), who is now an experienced GB cross country international.
Since last year’s fourth place, the versatile north Wales athlete added the steeplechase to her impressive skillset and promptly broke the Welsh record.
Among a host of other top class entries, Olympian Megan Keith (Inverness Harriers AAC) makes a return to the Cardiff event having won in 2023.
A new face this year with be Kenyan teenager Cynthia Chepkirui, who won the 2025 African Under-18 3,000m title
The men’s race, contested over 9,600m, sees last year’s third place finisher Daniel Kibet (Uganda) return, while there is a trio of high quality Kenyans on the start list.
Mathew Kipsang was a finalist in the 5,000m at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, while Victor Kimosop is in good form having won the Betika Cross Country title in his homeland last month.
The third Kenyan, Stephen Kimutai finished second in the Nairobi City Half Marathon in July, clocking 61:21.
The top Welsh finisher from last year Daf Jones (Swansea Harriers), who went on to represent GB at the European Cross County Championships in Turkey, will be hoping to emulate last year’s achievement.
Although he will have stiff competition from the likes of Osian Perrin. The Menai Track and Field athlete represented Great Britain at the 2021 European Cross Country Championships and won 3,000m silver at the 2023 British Indoor Championships.
British athletes across the age groups will be looking to run into form ready for the European Cross Country Championships trials in Liverpool later this month.
Among them will be one of the UK’s most talented young runners - Innes FitzGerald, who will be toeing the line in the women’s under-17 and under-20 race.
The Exeter Harrier did the 3,000m and 5,000m double at the European Under-20 Championships in the summer and boasts a clutch of team and individual European cross country golds.
Lining up alongside FitzGerald will be Welsh Under-20 talent Millie Gold (Swansea Harriers) who finished seventh in the 3,000m steeplechase final at the European Under-20 Athletics Championships in Finland.
Another Swansea Harrier, Libby Hale, who holds every Welsh 1500m record from under-13 to under-20, will be running in the under-17 category.
The men’s under-17 and under-20 race features talented GB international William Rabjohns (Poole AC) and Iwan Thomas (Carmarthen Harriers) who has represented Great Britain at the European Under-18 Athletics Championships and the World Under-18 Mountain Running Championships
Meanwhile, a host of other talented young Welsh runners will feature in the programme of younger age group races.
The action gets under way at 11.02am on Saturday morning with the primary schools girls race, following a two-minute silence ahead of Remembrance Sunday.
For those who can’t get down to Llandaff Fields on Saturday, the event will be live streamed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmgPbuJW0v0