'Monumental' occasion awaits Bathurst, as Mount Panorama prepares to host 2023 World Athletics Cross Country Championships in February

Originally scheduled to take place in 2021, the event was postponed to February, 2023, which will see thousands of athletes make the journey to Bathurst for the international event.

Runners already got the opportunity to test the track at Mount Panorama in August and representatives from Athletics Australia and World Athletics were at Bathurst on Tuesday for a final site visit ahead of next year's event.

World Athletics Cross Country Championships general manager Richard Welsh said the event will be "monumental" for Bathurst and Australia.

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"It's the 45^th edition and it's the first time in Australia. We've never hosted a senior World Athletics Championship," he said.

"You think of all the boys and girls that do cross country at school and then go represent their school, then their state and then their country. Here's the pinnacle of every childhood dream when they line up at the school cross country carnival."

Welsh said the track will be a good challenge for athletics of all skill and ages.

"We had our test event in August and it was really challenging," he said.

"If you want an easy run, go to parkrun or run around an athletics track. If you want to test yourself and see how your running is, cross country is it.

"This has up hill, down hill, mud, sand, tight turns and running through unique Australian wildlife aspects."

Once the Bathurst 12 Hour wraps up on February 3-5, organisers will set up camp to prepare the track for use come February 17-19.

"Part of the challenge for us to cover up any road ways because the runners will wear spikes. That will be part of the challenge, which we're up for," Welsh said.

"Once the 12 Hour is done in February, we'll be coming in and setting this up for a purpose built cross country venue."

There'll be a number of events across the three days including school challenges, club races and Golden Ticket races, which will see placegetters make it through to the actual World Championships.

It means everyday runners the opportunity to experience first hand what the world's best distance runners will experience.

"One of the beautiful things about our sport is that you can run on the course," Welsh said.

"It's not common you can do that for other sports but for running, we've got 34 events across the three days of the event that are open for the public to participate in. Think of it as a fun run on a cross country course over three days.

"That last event was in Aarhus in Denmark and they had a mass participation program. It's relatively new, but we think the majority of our spectators will be runners too.

"We've got a really strong criteria to bring 2000 outside of Bathurst to this event and we think we'll exceed that significantly. People want to come here and get their feet dirty."

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