BRUSSELS, Belgium - Consider it fair warning if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow morning. Yesterday's certainties - death, taxes, bad music on the radio - may no longer be so tomorrow.

The Kenyans, after all, are no longer the lords of cross country running.

Kenenisa Bekele, extending to three his unprecedented string of individual doubles with a 35:53 clocking over Brussels' sticky 12K course, led Ethiopia to the Senior Men's 12K team title at the World Cross Country Championships on Sunday, emphatically terminating Kenya's eighteen-year string of victories in the men's 12K event with a one-two-three sweep of the individual medals. Bekele, who won the 4K event yesterday, was joined by teammates Gebre Gebremariam and Sileshi Sihine on the medals podium.

Bekele's win earned him his seventh World Cross gold. Gebremariam took his second silver of the weekend with 36:10 and Sihine grabbed the bronze with 36:11. Yibetal Admassu sealed Ethiopian potentially sea-changing triumph by finishing 8th in 36:52. The team scored 14 points.

Kenya, which had not lost the premier men's event at World Cross since 1985 (also to Ethiopia), earned the silver with a 30 point score. World 5000 meter champion Eliud Kipchoge led Kenya with a fourth place finish. Ethiopia's neighbor Eritrea was third with 66.

Kenya's defeat did not come as a complete shock to close observers of distance running. Ethiopia had made gold medal inroads in other World Cross events in recent years. Kenya had already lost the steeplechase title - the track event most synonymous with Kenyan domination - at the World Track and Field Championships last summer, although in that case the East African nation could take some solace in the fact that the Qatari winner of the event was, until a few weeks before the event, a Kenyan citizen.

Whether Ethiopia's victory is the dawn of a new dynasty or confirmation of a two-superpower dynamic in the endurance wars remains to be seen. At the end of the Brussels championships, though, Ethiopia fly home with five of the six team golds, four of the six individual golds and 14 of the 18 individual medals on offer.

For the United States teams, the second day of the championships was a slightly dimmer version of the first day's modest results. Shalane Flanagan, a junior at the University of North Carolina was a bright spot as the top USA placer at the Championships with a 14th place finish in the Women's 4K event. The USA's Women's 4K team placed 7th, as did the Junior Men's squad. The Senior Men's 12K team placed 11th. For the first time since 1999 the Americans will return home without any harrier hardware.

"Those ladies are fierce competitors and I tried to come in with that mentality," Flanagan, who clocked 13:34, said. "This race helps me realize how great the world's top runners are and how much harder I have to train."

Behind the 2004 USA 4K champ was former Stanford star Lauren Fleshman 24th in 13:56, Christin Wurth 43rd in 14:21, Missy Buttry 60th in 14:33, Sarah Hann 64th in 14:38 and Janet Trujillo 77th in 14:57.

Edith Masai of Kenya won her third straight Women's 4K title with a 13:07 clocking. World 5000 meter champion Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia was second in 13:09, teammate Teyba Erkesso was third in 13:11. Ethiopia edged Kenya 19-21 for the team gold, while surprising Canada took the bronze with 87. The USA tallied 141 for seventh.

High school senior Ryan Deak of Aurora, Colorado led the USA Junior Men's squad with a 34th in 26:27 finish in 8K. Deak was followed closely by Stanford freshman Forrest Tahdooahnippah 37th in 26:29. Joshua McDougal was 49th in 26:50, USA Junior Champion John Janson was 55th in 27:03, Trent Hoerr was 60th in 27:08 and Ian Burrell was 81st in 27:42.

"It went perfect," said Deak. "I got a great start. I didn't feel like I was going fast at all, but I was ahead of some Kenyans, so I relaxed about the next 100 yards and I relaxed up the hill and then relaxed to the first K point. About the 6K mark I got a horrible cramp in the side of my stomach and that totally killed my last loop."

Kenya won its lone team gold in the tightly fought Junior Men's event with 20 points, Ethiopia was second with 25 and Uganda was third 33. Meba Tadesse won the inidividual crown in 24:01, Uganda's Boniface Kiprop was second in 24:03 and Ernest Meli Kimeli was third in 24:16. The USA tallied 175 for their 7th place finish.

Olympian Abdi Abdirahman led the USA's Senior Men's 12K squad with a 34th place finish in 38:08. American 5000 meter record- holder Bob Kennedy was second for the Americans in 44th with 38:28. Richie Brinker of Team USA Michigan, who picked his way through the field in defiance of World Cross convention, was 51st in 38:36, Dave Davis was 82nd in 39:30, Nolan Swanson was 93rd in 40:03 and Joshua Eberly was 108th in 41:03. The team tallied 211 points for 11th.

"This was not a good day for us Americans at all," Abdirahman said. "This is a real cross country course. This course shows your strengths and weaknesses."

"I didn't feel good. I never did," USA 12K champion Kennedy observed. "I felt decent warming up, but I never felt right. For at least three kilometers I was in the position I wanted to be, with the idea that I would start picking through the pack, but I went the other way."

The 2005 World Cross Country Championships are set for St. Etienne-St. Galmier, France on March 19 and 20. Complete individual and team results at: http://www.iaaf.org/wxc04/results/Byevent.html

More Team USA coverage and quotes at: www.usatf.org