perfect gold, occupying the top four spots. With Ethiopia, Uganda and Eritrea taking the next three team spots, the upper rankings featured almost exclusively East African runners, with Joel Mmone of South Africa (21st place) being the only exception among the first 24 runners to finish. The junior women's race marked a resounding defeat for the defending Ethiopian team and its defending champion Genzebe Dibaba. The leading pack remained large during the first two laps, but on the third and final lap the Kenyan women asserted themselves. By the halfway point, Mercy Cherono was at the front of a group of four Kenyans comprising Purity Rionoripo, Esther Chemtai and Faith Chepngetich. Cherono pulled ahead of her compatriots and won with ease. Rionoripo just pipped Chemtai for second place in a sprint finish, shortly followed by Chepndetich in fourth place. Dibaba finished in eleventh, helping Ethiopia to the team silver. Uganda took the team bronze while the first non-African-born runner home was Gulshat Fazlitdinova of Russia. Reception Having won every gold medal on offer, as well as a 1–2 in the women's race and every junior individual medal, Kenya were perceived as being by far the dominant force of the championships. However, while this success was lauded as a great achievement for Kenya by commentators such as former champion John Ngugi, this dominance came with a fall in both interest and participation from Western countries. Nations with distinguished histories in long distance running, such as Russia, Germany and Finland, sent no senior athletes to the championships at all, while the sole runners for Belgium and the Netherlands (Atelaw Yeshetela and Hilda Kibet) were both born in East Africa. The secretary general of the IAAF, Pierre Weiss, acknowledged the lack of European teams present at the competition, but said that problem was solely with world championships participation and not the sport of cross country running as a whole as the 2009 European Cross Country Championships had been successful. IAAF president Lamine Diack stated that European runners needed to learn from the East Africans to improve their performances. However, the decline in European interest had a direct effect on the scheduling of the world championships event, which had been changed from an annual to a biennial format by a large majority of votes at the 2009 IAAF Congress. Medallists Results Senior men's race (11.611 km) Complete results for senior men and for senior