Amman, Jordan - How refreshing to come to a major championship without a strong presumption as to who the winner will be.

That’s the position as we arrive in Amman for the 37th IAAF World Cross Country Championships on Saturday 28 March. Four of the six women who have won the senior long course race since 2000 are still active at the highest levels of the sport, Paula Radcliffe (2001-02), Benita Johnson (2004), Tirunesh Dibaba (2005-06 and 2008) and Lornah Kiplagat (2007) but not one is running in Amman.

The only former senior champion entered is Ethiopia’s Gelete Burka, winner in Fukuoka in 2006 of the now defunct short-course title. At the risk of stretching a point to bolster the argument, and not taking anything away from that champions abilities, even that was a race lost as much as a race won as Dibaba pulled out ill at the half-way point.

And, of course, junior competition never stands still so when we turn to the junior women’s race there can be no certainty either, though it would be a foolhardy pundit who suggested the winner would not come from East Africa. Last year’s champion, Genzebe Dibaba, younger sister of Tirunesh, returns to defend her title.

If the champion’s tag means anything in looking for a senior winner, four former junior champions are entered in this year’s senior race. Meselech Melkamu won for Ethiopia in 2004, Burka succeeded her, Pauline Korikwiang won in Fukuoka three years ago and her Kenyan teammate Linet Masai won in Mombasa.

Looking through the Kenyan and Ethiopian teams, Florence Kiplagat won at the IAAF Cross-Country Permit meeting in Seville this year and then took the Kenyan trial in Nairobi a month later. Innes Chenonge was a close-up second with Masai and Linet Chepkurui following. Korikwiang finished only 14th but was drafted into the team as a wild card selection. As ever, the finishing order in Amman will be determined by what has happened in the final team training camp.

Wude Ayalew, bronze medallist at 10,000 metres in the African championships, surprised Melkamu to take the Ethiopian senior trial. Melkamu, twice a....