Lebid aims to break African dominance

Published on Monday 29 December 2008 22:01

EUROPEAN champion Sergiy Lebid will bid to become the first non-African winner of the Bupa Great Edinburgh International Cross Country on 10 January.

The 33-year-old Ukrainian competes in the Scottish capital just a few weeks after an eighth European crown in Brussels, where he outsprinted British No 1 Mo Farah in a thrilling encounter.

Farah will be an absentee at the Holyrood Park venue, having opted instead to return to Ethiopia for another spell of high-altitude training after a successful period there last month.

With Kenenisa Bekele, the race winner for the last three years, absent through injury, Andy Caine, the event's elite athletes manager, believes it will be the most open competition in the meeting's history.

Caine said: "He may unfortunately be injured, but it still has the makings of a cracking race and I wouldn't like to forecast the outcome, although I would love to see Lebid pull a win off. Lebid showed with his victory in Brussels he is in brilliant shape and with his experience will not need to be reminded of what tactics he will have to employ if he is to smash the African dominance of the race."

Frank Ticker spearheads the domestic challenge.

&#149 Beijing Olympic pole vault champion Steve Hookerleads, who won Australia's first field gold medal since 1948, heads a team of nine Australian athletes pre- selected for next year's world championships in Berlin.