Reigning World Cross Country champion Joseph Ebuya has joined the already highly competitive field for the Bupa Great South Run this weekend.

Ebuya will lead the Kenyan challenge in the ten-mile race over a fast and flat course in Portsmouth on Sunday.

Briton Andy Lemoncello’s exclusion from the British team for the World Half Marathon Championships has also made him available for the Hampshire event.

The USA-based Scot – the first Brit to finish last month’s Great North Run – was due to wear his country’s colours in Nanning this Saturday, but was refused a visa by the Chinese authorities without any explanation.

It is a welcome bonus for the Bupa Great South Run, allowing Lemoncello to lead the British chase for a podium place in the 21st staging of the world’s top rated ten-mile event.

But Jo Pavey has withdrawn because of a bout of sickness.

She has not recovered from a recent attack of influenza and has accepted she is not in shape to chase the title she won four years ago.

Her withdrawal means recently-crowned Commonwealth 1,500m bronze medallist Stephanie Twell will lead the British challenge against strong overseas opposition.

Ebuya and Lemoncello, meanwhile, will line up against Switzerland’s Viktor Rothlin, this summer’s European Championships marathon gold medallist, and Guenther Weidlinger, the surprise Austrian winner of last year’s Great Australian Run.

“We’ve also got another Kenyan, Vincent Yator, who just missed out on a medal in a close 5000 metres at the Commonwealth Games, so it’s going to be a highly competitive race,” said Peter Riley, the meeting’s elite athletes manager.

Riley added: “I’m also delighted to have persuaded Ebuya, the first Kenyan winner of the World Cross gold medal since Paul Tergat in 1999, to come and along and add his stature to the race.”

GREAT SOUTH RUN SPECIAL: All the SO postcode finishers, times, report, reaction and great picture coverage – don’t miss next Monday’s Daily Echo