It was a good weekend for Africa, with 11 of 12 gold medals at the World Cross Country Championships going to athletes from Ethiopia and Kenya. Kenenisa Bekele, just 19, became the first man to win both the long and short course races. He did so in a span of less than 24 hours.

Bekele's teammate, Gebre-egziabher Gebremariam, succeeded him as World Junior champ, running barefoot because his shoes had not arrived in Dublin in time.

Perhaps the most surprising result came in the women's long course, where Africans were shut out of the medals. Britain's Paula Radcliffe won -- no huge surprise there -- but second and third went to Americans Deena Drossin and Colleen de Reuck. Not since 1970 had two U.S. women won in the same Worlds race. Behind them, Jen Rhines finished a solid 12th.

That helped give the U.S. women the silver medal with 38 points, three ahead of Kenya's 41.

In the short course women's race, Suzy Favor Hamilton refused to be intimidated in her first trip to the championships. She led for most of the 4K before finishing fifth, the highest finish ever by an American in that race. Carrie Tollefson managed 11th as the U.S. team ended up sixth overall.

Hamilton expressed disappointment that Regina Jacobs, winner of the U.S. Trials, chose not to make the trip to Dublin.

"With her on our team we most certainly would've won a team medal, without a doubt," Hamilton said. "I feel like it's a shame that she didn't show up. I know she's training for the steeplechase and in my mind it makes no sense that she didn't come here ... We were so fired up after seeing the women's [long course] team take the silver. We wanted to be on that podium, and we could've been if our number one runner at the Trials would've been here."

The U.S. placed fifth in the women's Junior race, led by Erika Odlaug (17th).

The U.S. men produced solid, but not spectacular, performances. Abdi Abdirahman led the squad in the 12K, finishing 11th after being an early leader of the race. Meb Keflezighi placed 14th, and Dathan Ritzenhein, in his first race as a Senior, 24th. They placed fifth in the team standings.

In the short course, the United States earned another fifth place, led by Jorge Torres (11th) and Matt Lane (18th). The U.S. Juniors placed seventh, with top runner Rod Koborsi placing 30th.

Not too soon for outdoor track
A quick visit to the NCAA qualifier lists for the outdoor season shows some athletes are rip-roaring their way into the early outdoor season. Kansas State heptathlete Austra Skujyte already has scored 5798. Mississippi State's Pierre Brown, a Canadian, has sprinted 10.13. Jonathan Riley of Stanford has clocked 13:40.59 in the 5,000, and Auburn's Fred Sharpe has hit 50.10 in the 400 hurdles. In the long jump, Brian Johnson of Southern is out to a windy 27-4. Jamaican Claston Bernard of Louisiana State University has already scored 8050 in the decathlon.

IAAF going after EPO
The IAAF has announced that starting in May it will begin testing for EPO (Erythropoietin) on a year-round, random basis. That will help reign in the cheaters who have used the hormone to gain a jump on their competitors in the endurance events.

EPO is a hormone that aids in the production of red blood cells, the primary vehicle for transporting oxygen to the muscles. It has a variety of legitimate uses, lately being used to fight anemia in HIV patients. Its possibilities in endurance sports are obvious, and after it was successfully synthesized in 1985, it became quite popular in cycling circles before runners discovered it. The explosion in distance running times from the 5,000 to the marathon over the past 10 years probably owes more to EPO than to improved training techniques.

Yet the IAAF has been hampered by the lack of a reliable test until now. Efforts to bring a test online before the Sydney Olympics fell flat, and the methodology of the test was still debatable last year, when it led to the debacle with Olga Yegorova at the World Championships. Now the IAAF has sanctioned a combined blood/urine test.

The test was used at last weekend's World Cross Country Championships in Dublin.

IAAF 2005 decision coming
The IAAF will announce what city will take London's place as host of the 2005 World Championships at its Nairobi meeting in mid-April. The candidates are: Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Helsinki, Moscow and Rome.

Marathon hype coming
It's that time of year for marathon fans to start thumping their drums to herald their favorite race (Boston, London or Rotterdam) as featuring the greatest marathon showdown ever. London boosters will have Haile Gebrselassie to crow about this year. The Ethiopian track legend will be running his first marathon, and hype is already running high.

Gebrselassie looks to be a decent bet. He won last weekend's Lisbon half-marathon in 59:40, leading the entire way before outkicking Hendrick Ramaala and old rival Paul Tergat. London will also see the debut of Paula Radcliffe, who won a world cross country title last weekend in stunning fashion.

Boston this year features a host of top Kenyans led by Elijah Lagat, Lorna Kiplagat and Catherine Ndereba.

New books
Good running books come sporadically, it seems. Training advice hasn't changed dramatically in the past 30 years, so most books just polish it up and aim it at a new audience. Biographies and "as-told-tos" generally don't sell well at all, save for the few that make cult classic status (Tom Jordan's Pre, for one). Yet there are a few recent running books out there of interest as well as some that are on my future reading list (Running Through The Ages, by Edward Sears). As for track books, we could always use more.

Remember Bruce Fordyce? The South African marathoner has won the fabled Comrades Marathon race nine times, more than anybody else. Comrades, in case you don't know, is actually an ultramarathon, at 50-miles-plus approximately double the usual marathon distance. Understandably, he's devoted a lot of time to thinking about what makes a good marathon experience. Now he's joined with Marielle Rensen in writing "Marathon Runner's Handbook," a general introduction to the long run. You've got to see it to appreciate it. Never has a running book been published with more color photos; it's glossy, and I think will do much to excite the interest of the novice runner.

Veteran runners might find more appeal in "Advanced Marathoning," written by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas. Pfitzinger, the winner of the Olympic Trials race in 1984, knows his stuff as an exercise physiologist. Published last year, it is aimed at the runner who has already completed a marathon and now wants to get faster.

Both novices and veterans can get something out of "Diets Designed for Athletes," by Maryann Karinch. It avoids miracle and gimmick-based advice for no-nonsense information with a sound medical basis.

Jeff Hollobaugh, former managing editor of Track and Field News, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached by e-mail at michtrack@aol.com.