While the most headline-grabby moments of World XC came from the senior races and their internationally recognizable star power, the women’s U20 race may be one we’ll remember the longest. Why is that, you might ask?

Well, the race was won by 17-year-old Marta Alemayo of Ethiopia, who, despite being essentially a high school senior, defended her title with a dominant 18:52 run over 6km. She beat a 9:20 steeplechaser, her teammate Wosane Asefa, by 26 seconds. And to reiterate this was her second World XC junior title!

Those familiar with the lore of the “Kinny Curse” “Foot Locker Curse” “Eastbay-Foot Locker Curse” Brooks Curse will be the first to tell you that cross country results from teenagers do not necessarily translate to collegiate or professional success. But here’s the thing: the history of World U20 champions on the grass tells a very different story.

With her win in Tallahassee, Alemayo became just the fifth runner to win back-to-back junior races at World XC, and joined elite company in the process. The other four: Viola Kibiwot (2001-2002), Genzebe Dibaba (2008-2009), Faith Kipyegon (2011-2013), and Letensbet Gidey (2015-2017). Of that group, Kibiwot is the outlier—and even then, her best career finishes on the senior level were a more-than-respectable pair of fourth places in the 5000m at Worlds in 2013 and 2015.

Historically speaking, if you win two U20 golds in cross-country, there’s a 75% chance that you’ll set at least one world record and win one global title! That’s the ceiling! The floor is “only” landing one spot off the podium multiple times!

It’s not just the double champs, either. Past one-time winners of this very race include Vivian Cheruiyot (six World/Olympic track titles), Tirunesh Dibaba (eight World/Olympic track titles), and of course, Beatrice Chebet, the current world record holder at 5000m and 10,000m. Only three of the 12 women crowned this century don’t have a global medal on the track, and one of those three—Senayet Getachew, who took third in the senior race this time around—is herself still only 20 years old and has plenty of time to pick one up.

Alemayo is no one-trick pony. She can hack it on the track, too. Lost in the fervor of last summer’s Gout Gout/Cooper Lutkenhaus mania was the fact that Alemayo set world U18 bests over 3000 meters, 5000 meters, and 3000 meters indoors. She’s yet to place higher than sixth at a Diamond League or represent Ethiopia at a senior championship, but she’s got PBs of 14:34.46 and 8:32.20. At the London DL, she finished four places and five seconds ahead of Great Britain’s Innes Fitzgerald, who’s also something of a wunderkind at 19 years… old but is two years and two days older than Alemayo. It’s a shame that Fitzgerald, who won the U20 race at Euro XC, didn’t make the trip across the point to measure herself up against the best of her cohort.

So why isn’t Marta Alemayo picking up Gatorade sponsorships and drawing comparisons to Usain Bolt? For starters, she hasn’t actually won anything of note on the senior level. And simply getting the chance to try might be tough: she was only the 13th fastest Ethiopian over 5000m in 2025, and four of the six fastest were born in either 2005 or 2006. And it’s not like the women in front of her are aging out. If she’s not yet making World teams or winning Diamond Leagues, it’s extraordinarily hard to break through to international stardom without going the route of the NCAA system.

In some ways, however, that’s the whole point of having a U20 race at World XC: it gives the stars of tomorrow the chance to gain recognition and respect before tomorrow actually arrives. So when Marta Alemayo is a force to be reckoned with in Beijing in 2027 or Los Angeles in 2028, you can be ahead of the curve in following her career.

You heard it here first, all thanks to Tallahassee.

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