The Viability of Cross-Country Running Appearing in the Winter Olympic Games

Abstract

Today, cross-country running celebrates over 200 years of being a practiced, organized sport. Originally adapted as a form of imitation fox hunting by schoolboys in England, it is now a globally sanctioned program governed by World Athletics, which oversees marathon running, track and field, and other athletics events. First introduced to the International Olympic Committee by Percy Fischer, a member of the Olympic track committee of the Amateur Athletics Association in October 1910, cross-country running appeared three times on the program for the Summer Olympic Games in 1912, 1920, and 1924 as both a team and individually-scored event. Due to the overwhelming popularity of track and field and marathon events in the current Olympic Games program in the summer, recent attention has turned to promoting cross-country running––largely practiced in the autumnal and winter months the world over––for inclusion on the Winter Olympic Games schedule. Despite a history of nearly 100 years of efforts for reinclusion back into the Olympics, cross-country running has had difficulty in gaining traction for support for the winter program, largely due to the winter olympic charter mandating all sports be practiced exclusively on snow or ice.