Team USA set for World Cross Country Championships

INDIANAPOLIS - Members of the Team USA World Cross Country squad are making final preparations for competition at the 38^th IAAF World Cross Country Championships at Myslecinek Park in Bydgoszcz, Poland on March 28.

The senior women of Team USA are set to challenge for their first team medal since 2005 when they won the bronze medal in the women's 4 km. The quest for a team medal will be led by 2010 USA Cross Country champion, 2008 Olympic Games 10,000m bronze medalist and American record holder Shalane Flanagan(Pittsboro, N.C.) who is also considered an individual medal contender.

Joining Flanagan will be four-time World Cross Country team member Renee Metivier Baillie (Boulder, Colo.), 2008 Olympic Marathoner Magdalena Lewy Boulet (Oakland, Calif.), 2009 USA Women's 10 km Champion Molly Huddle (Providence, R.I.), 2009 USA Cross Country Champion Emily Brown (Minneapolis, Minn.), and Amy Hastings (Flagstaff, Ariz.), third-place finisher from the USA Cross Country Championships in Spokane.

Leading the U.S. senior men's team will be 2010 USA Cross Country Championships runner-up Patrick Smyth (Minneapolis, Minn.). Smyth will team with three-time U.S. squad member Ryan Vail (Gresham, Ore.) who represented Team USA first as a junior in St. Galmier, France in 2005 and returning as the top Team USA senior men's finisher in Amman, Jordan last year where he finished 33^rd. Joining Smyth and Vail will be two-time USA Cross Country team members Scott Bauhs (Chico, Calif.) and Bobby Curtis(Ardmore, Pa.). Rounding out the senior men's team will be Ben Bruce (Eugene, Ore.) and Bobby Mack(Raleigh, N.C.).

The junior men's team will feature USA Junior Cross Country Champion Trevor Dunbar (Kodiak, Alaska.), a freshman at the University of Portland, who will be joined by Walter Schafer (Centennial, Colo.), who finished second in Spokane. The junior men's team will be rounded out by Andrew Colley (Williamsburg, Va.) of North Carolina State University, Andrew Kimpel (Spokane, Wash.) a freshman at Washington State University, Michael Lynch (Columbia, Md.), a freshman at Oklahoma State University and Ammar Moussa(Arcadia, Calif.), a junior at Arcadia High School in California.

Team USA's junior women will be led by USA Cross Country champion Shelby Greany (Providence, R.I.). A Providence College freshman, Greany will team with high school senior Emily Sisson (Chesterfield, Missouri), Juliet Bottorff (Newark, Del.) of Duke University, and Georgetown University freshman Emily Jones (Harvard, Mass.). University of Colorado freshman Laura Tremblay (Loveland, Colorado) and Duke University freshman Sophia Ziemian (Lewisburg, Pa.) complete the Team USA junior women's squad.

A total prize purse of $140,000 will go to individuals placing in the top-six in both the men's and women's senior races with $30,000 going to the champions, while another $140,000 is on the line for the top-six teams in the senior divisions with the top men's and women's teams receiving $20,000.