Cross Country
Coaches: Mr. Carter, Ms. Young
History of Cross Country Running
The sport can be dated back to the 1800s in England where it was a team sport in public schools. At that time, the sport was named “Hare and Hounds” or “The Paper Chase”. The sport would consist of a group of runners that would lay a trail of paper or other devices to mark a trail and another group of runners would follow the trail. In 1837, the first competition was held at Rugby School, which later turned into the sport having a course pre set over open country land. The sport became so popular in England in the later 1800s and finally, in 1876 the English National Cross-Country Championship took place. A year later, The United States was introduced to the sport and the National Cross-Country Association was founded as well as the Amateur Athletic Association began, which began holding the yearly National Championship. It did not take long for the Universities in the United States to pick up the sport. Harvard was the first University to hold a cross-country team and many other Universities followed. Not many years later, cross-country started its first international races. England and France were the first to compete internationally, along with Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Finally in the early 20th Century, cross-country finally became a sport in the Olympic Games, but did not last long, as the sport was not considered to be appropriate for competition in the summer games.
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How it works
Cross country is a running sport that consists of teams of 5 or more runners, with only the top 5 runners being scored. The courses that cross country meets are held at courses that vary in difficulty. The terrain of the courses can include grass, sand, and can have a fair amount of hills. This is what sets cross country apart from other running sports.
The lengths of these courses vary from course to course and university to university. For men the courses could be anywhere from 4 miles to 7.5 miles (about 9,300 meters to 12,000 meters), and for women the races are from 1.25 miles to 3 miles (about 2,000 meters ti 5,000 meters).
Scoring in cross country is different than any other sport. A team can enter as many runners as it wants, but only the first 5 runners for that team are scored, and the points earned are by the place they finish. For example, if a runner finished in 3rd place, that runner would receive 3 points. The places of the top 5 runners are then added up and the team with the least amount of points is the winner