Cross-Country: The Greatest Sport Not in the Olympic Games

But the question popped up again in 1947 when the IAAF considered the International Cross Country Union proposal: “Ritter Von Halt said that the arranging of such a race could not be made because of the present rules of the International Olympic Committee. The council decided to recommend the congress not to accept the proposal. The various members of the council being of the opinion that cross‐country racing was a fine sport, well deserving encouragement, empowered the honorary secretary to study the question in order to find out if international intercourse in this event could be promoted in some other way.”

• But the question popped up again in 1947 when the IAAF considered the International Cross Country Union proposal: “Ritter Von Halt said that the arranging of such a race could not be made because of the present rules of the International Olympic Committee. The council decided to recommend the congress not to accept the proposal. The various members of the council being of the opinion that cross‐country racing was a fine sport, well deserving encouragement, empowered the honorary secretary to study the question in order to find out if international intercourse in this event could be promoted in some other way.”

This promotion of the sport “some other way” had to do with the International Cross Country Championship coming under the auspices of the IAAF as early as 1953, when the IAAF secretary mentioned in a note: “In view of the International Cross-Country Championship having assumed much bigger international dimensions, it was felt that the race should in the future come more within the orbit of the IAAF.” Within 20 years the IAAF would take over the management completely, and the World Cross Country Championship would be the result.

But just prior to this change in management, conversation would stir again within various organizations to see cross-country running return to the Olympics. The fall of 1970 would see correspondence (and a response) printed in the Long Distance Log as to the advisability of this idea. This time, it was an American AAU official, Dan Ferris, who brought the question in front of the IAAF. “Despite the fact that I personally felt that it was inadvisable, I was prepared to vote for the inclusion of the cross-country event because the National Long Distance Running Committee had favored the proposal,” wrote Ferris. “However the Australian AAU which had originally proposed having a cross-country race on the Olympic program, withdrew the proposal before the matter came up for a vote.”