Rodrigue Kwizera won the Cross Internacional de Itálica in Santiponce, near Seville, on Sunday, taking his third title at the World Athletics Cross Country Tour Gold meeting to equal Kenenisa Bekele's record. Racing in his first cross country as a Spanish athlete, Kwizera clocked 27:36 and finished one second ahead of Kenya's Charles Kiboino Kiprono, with 19-year-old Frankline Kibet a further second back in 27:38 on his senior international cross country debut.
The result extends a remarkable season for Kwizera, who has now won eight of his ten starts on the 2026 circuit. His Spanish half marathon record of 58:03 in Valencia showed his road form; Sunday showed he is still the man to beat on grass. Thierry Ndikumwenayo, his training partner and the defending European cross country champion, was fifth in 27:58 on his season debut, with Spain's Miguel Ángel Martínez Chazarra sixth in 27:59.
The women's race was run at a fast opening tempo, with around seven athletes through the first lap in 8:00 to 8:01 before the lead group narrowed to three. Likina Amebaw of Ethiopia surged clear in the closing metres to win the 9.5km race in 30:40, eight seconds ahead of Uganda's Charity Cherop (30:48) and Kenya's Cynthia Chepkirui (30:56). It was Amebaw's sixth cross country win of 2026, a year in which she has also won at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest and a world 5km race in Copenhagen.
Yenenesh Shimket of Ethiopia was fourth in 31:23 and Maurine Chebor of Kenya, a top-10 finisher at the World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, was fifth in 32:01. The leading Spanish woman was Carolina Robles Campos in eighth in 32:50, followed by María Forero in ninth in 33:15, with ten more Spanish women inside the top 25.
Berihu Aregawi, the three-time world cross country silver medallist, finished ninth in 28:23, level on time with Uganda's Dismas Yeko. His form had been uncertain before the race, and a top-10 finish in a field of this depth offers a measure of reassurance. For Kwizera, though, the afternoon was historic: only one other man, Bekele in the 2000s, has won the Itálica three times.