Speaking of big names, for those in attendance that 21st day of March, 1992, there were none bigger than those running at Franklin Park in the 1992 World Cross Country Championship. Haile Gebreselassie and Paula Radcliffe were there, as was Hicham El Guerrouj, Khalid Skah, William Sigei, Ismail Kirui, Sonia O’Sullivan, Gete Wami, and Gabi Szabo. Kenyan John Ngugi won his fifth World Cross Country senior men’s title that day, leading home teammate William Mutwol in the process. Kenya ended up winning their seventh straight team title over France. American Lynn Jennings was the appropriate champion of the senior women’s race, where she narrowly defeated Catherina McKiernan of Ireland and Albertina Dias of Portugal. Thrusting both her arms up in jubilation, Jennings won by only two seconds, then promptly broke down sobbing. “I was crying tears of joy,” Jennings said later. “I never did that before.” There may have never been such a collection of world record holders, Olympic, national, and international champions all present for the same event on the same day before or since.





The lead-up to the event was almost as fantastic as the participants themselves. It was only the second time that the IAAF World Cross had been held in the western hemisphere, and John McGrath, former publisher of New England Runner magazine, initiated Boston’s bid to host after directing the 1984 National Cross Country Championships at Franklin Park (the same one where Pat Porter won his third of eight consecutive U.S. cross country titles). “We pulled out all the bells and whistles,” McGrath notes. “We had things like a finish line bridge, which was unusual for cross country at the time. The whole running community came out. The crowd was huge.” One member of that running community was Fred Lebow of the New York Road Runners, who had hosted World Cross at the Meadowlands earlier in the year. Lebow watched the Franklin Park race with Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, who was also a runner. McGrath said, “Fred’s first comment was, ‘You’ve got to bring the World Cross Country Championships here.’” McGrath hung onto the idea and later put together a committee, pulled in City officials and worked with Ollan Cassell, then the Executive Director of The Athletics Congress (later USA Track and Field). It was the first time the city of Boston had held a World Championship.

Part of the motivation behind hosting the World Cross event was the need for a new home at Franklin Park for cross country, which had traditionally shared space with golf. “Due to the rehabilitation of the golf course with all 18 holes re-opened, conflicts between golfers and runners were becoming more frequent,” said Bill Linehan, member of the Boston Park’s Department. The cross country course had crossed fairways and looped greens for years. Some years, it consisted of a large amount of pavement encircling the golf course. Several options made neither golfers nor runners happy. “The new course was designed to try to help figure out ways for golf and running to co-exist at Franklin Park,” said Chris Lane, a local track official, and technical director of the event. “We also wanted to make the course more spectator-friendly. The theme was to think of a flower and make the loops like petals.”