Cross country sport in Palestine was popular among British military men and officials. Cross country championship in Palestine started in 1933. As documents show, in general, this sport became popular in early 1940s until 1947. However, reports were rare and insufficient to provide details about this sport.
The
First Annual YMCA - Jerusalem Cross Country Championship was held in 1930. In
July 1931 the Jerusalem YMCA had hosted the Second Annual YMCA Cross Country Championship
for Palestine in which 107 competitors took part. The army, police, Arab Sports
Club, Hapoel, Bishop Gobat’s School (St. George’s School), Jerusalem Sports
Club, Orthodox Sports Club, Post and Telegraph (a corporate team), and the
District Police all participated.
In August 1941,
Palestine Post reported about cross country: The eight annual Open Palestine
Cross Country Championship, inaugurated and sponsored by the Jerusalem
Y.M.C.A., will take place on Saturday, September 27, over the usual course in
Jerusalem. The Championship is open to all bona fide organizations, clubs, associations,
Government Institutions, schools, and Army, Royal Air Force and Police teams.
Teams will consist of no less than five and mo more than eight runners. Only
the first five runners in each team will count for point placings.[i]
It also reported that “Placing five men in
the first 14, the Palestine Police had little difficulty in retaining the
Palestine Cross Country Championship, which was run off yesterday afternoon,
and once again took the "Keith Roach" Challenge Cup. The first man
home was Macoy of the Royal Air Force, who when in England runs for the
Aylesford Paper Mills. Mocoy's time for the five miles course was 23 min. 13.5
sec., which was well outside Scanlon's record time of 23 sec.” [ii]
In May 1947, (Arab) Palestine Sports
Federation (established in 1931 and re-established in 1944) held a competition
in 8-km cross country where 26 athletes from the cities around Palestine took
part. The committee was made of Livon Kishishian, Khair Eddin Abu Jibin (editor
of in Al-Difa's sports column), Ibrahim Nuseibeh, Rock Farraj and Subhi
Farah. Al-Difa' stated that the competition started at 4pm. The
competitors passed Jamal Pasha street, then the city square, Nuzha street,
Mustashfa (hospital) street, Hulwa, and ended at Youth Beach. From there they
returned until they reach the Bassa stadium where fans were waiting for them on
both sides of the road. Two cars and ambulance accompanied them. [iii]
Endnotes
[i]Palestine
Post,
21 August 1941
[ii] Palestine
Post, 10 September 1944.
[iii] Al-Difa',
19 May 1947.
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