Tan, Veloria off to Cross Country World Championships

Tan

Tania Tan and Sildrey Veloria have been selected to represent the CNMI in the upcoming World Athletics Cross Country Championships 2023 in Bathurst, Australia. 

Tan is currently in her final year at Fordham University where she runs on the cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track teams. 

Both Tan and Veloria have represented the CNMI in OAA Cross Country Championships—Tan in 2019 and Veloria this past Fall. 

In total, 12 Oceania member federations will toe the start at Mount Panorama, which beat the previous five in 1988. 

Veloria

With 90 athletes across the teams, it would almost double the previous best of 48 athletes in the 1991 edition. 

The NMI will also join five other island nations to debut for the first time at a World Cross Country Championship.

The World Athletics Cross Country Championships is regarded as the toughest race on the calendar, combining the world’s greatest distance runners and challenging terrain to create a unique spectacle in sport. The 2023 event will be the 44th edition of these storied championships and will welcome more than 550 elite athletes from more than 60 countries to the famed Mount Panorama venue at Bathurst.

“Mount Panorama is a world-famous international racing track venue, attracting competitors from across the globe and is the perfect backdrop for the most important cross-country event in the world,” said Mayor Ian North of Bathurst Regional Council. The course is very challenging and will encompass hills, mud pits, a sandy beach area with a beach bar in the far zone, and even a short stretch through local vineyards where the runners will have the opportunity to choose which grape variety to run past. In the Billabong area, runners will share the course with a resident population of kangaroos. The course is 2 kilometers long and runners will repeat the course to make their required distance.

The World Athletics Cross Country Championship Bathurst 2023 will comprise the U20 men’s (8km) and women’s (6km) races, the universal mixed relay (8km), and the senior individual men’s and women’s races (10km). These World Championship events will be supported by a series of mass participation races. Tan and Veloria will both be racing in the Senior Division in the 10K race.

For the first time in history, masters athletes will be able to stake their claim for glory alongside the world’s best cross country athletes at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships. The historic agreement between World Athletics, the Local Organizing Committee for WXC Bathurst 23, and World Masters Athletics will see the World Masters Course Cross Country Championships conducted on the same course as the World Athletics Cross Country Championships on February 18-19, 2023.

Cross country runners aged 35 and older can enter individually but must then be approved by their respective national federations. They will compete across two days of competition with the Masters Teams Relay on Feb. 18 and Masters Individual Championship races on Feb. 19. Dr. Ron Snyder will accompany Tan and Veloria as the coach/team manager, but will also have the chance to compete in the World Masters in the 55-59 Year Old Division. (PR)