Former world cross country champion Paul Tergat has blamed the regular change in national coaches for Kenya relinquishing their domination of the sport to Ethiopia.
"We will keep losing our grip on the world cross country title if we keep changing coaches. It is not good for the runners because we need consistency in this area," Tergat told reporters on Tuesday.
Tergat was the men's long course world cross country champion from 1995 to 1999, and no Kenyan has won the title since.
Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele has held the long and short course titles since 2002 and is the only man to win both events at the same championships. He also led Ethiopia to the long course team title in 2004, breaking Kenya's 18-year grip on the event.
"Many athletes who were selected (for the championships) want to train on their own outside the national team's residential training camp. That is a clear message to athletics chiefs that something is wrong with the coaching," said Tergat.
"I greatly benefited from the programmes at the camp...and I prefer that athletes remain in the camp. But the coaching system must be streamlined and changing coaches every year should stop," the marathon world record holder added.
Athletics Kenya scrapped head coach Mike Kosgei's position last month as part of a decentralisation of coaching.
Kosgei, one of the country's most successful coaches, was offered a position in charge of cross country and distance running but rejected it.
A set of coaches led by Julius Kirwa is preparing the Kenyan team for the world cross country championships in France on March 19 and 20.
World 5,000m champion Eliud Kipchoge has asked officials to allow him to train away from the national camp, which began on Monday.
Athletics Kenya chairman Isaiah Kiplagat said all athletes would stay at the camp in Kigari, 250km north east of Nairobi, and urged coaches to join their charges there if they wanted to continue with their programmes.
