Unknown to most, cross country and track is a very physical sport. Although contact during a race is prohibited it happens in every race. Most cross country races have far to many people in them for officials to keep an eye on all runners. Most are small gestures like running a little close to someone and maybe pushing the other person with an elbow. There are however many more way that a runner can be seriously hurt. At the beginning of any race there is a struggle for position, and that includes a lot of pushing and shoving. While running it is difficult to keep your balance while being completely surrounded by other runners, and people do fall. When someone falls it can be dangerous. Most runners run with spikes on the bottom of the shoe that are very sharp, and if someone was stepped on multiple times it wouldn't feel good.
A few years ago I saw a guy in front of me that got boxed in and ran into a tree. There wasn't a lot he could do because there was a person that was blocking his view of the tree and moved at the last second, he didn't finish the race. I found out that if you run close enough to someone and a bit behind them, you can clip their back leg as it comes up making the person face-plant. This was used in the following video, but in a steeplechase race at the world games a few years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_s6ahuPCwQ
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