Cross Country | 12/8/2016 12:04:00 PM
Not only do San Francisco runners compete and succeed at the highest levels stateside, the Dons toe the line at some of the top international competitions. This will be the case this Sunday, as five former, current and future USF cross country athletes will compete at the 23rd SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Chia, Italy.
All told, 498 athletes and 33 countries will compete with six individual titles up for grabs, and the Dons will dot the field in the U23 men's and women's races and the senior women's competition.
USF's two 2016 All-Americans,
Charlotte Taylor and
Alex Short, will represent Great Britain in the U23 race. For Taylor, a world-champion triathlete turned distance runner, this will be her first appearance at the European Cross Country Championships. Meanwhile, Short represented Great Britain in the U20 race in 2013.
In 2015, the women's team of Great Britain and Northern Ireland won the U23 team championship while the men were edged out by Spain by two points to take second in the races held in Hyeres, France.
Also lacing up for their respective countries in the U23 women's 6K are current Don
Isabelle Brauer (Sweden) and future USF runner Josephine Brysting (Denmark), who will join the squad for the 2017-18 campaign, pursuing a professional science master's degree in biotechnology.
Eva Krchova '13, USF's first-ever track All-American as a steeplechaser ('11-2nd team, '12-HM), will toe the line for her native Czech Republic in the senior women's 8K. Last year, Krchova finished 50th in the championships field, her first time competing at the European Championships in the senior division.
Along with the five running on Sunday, additional Dons have enjoyed recent success at the event. In 2014,
Weronika Pyzik finished 10th in the junior division, running for Poland. The 2013 field from Belgrade, Serbia, included Brauer, Pyzik,
Tatjana Schulte and Short entered in the U20 division, and Krchova racing as a U23 competitor.
The races featuring Dons' runners will be contested beginning at 11:10 a.m. local time in Italy, or 2:10 a.m. pacific time. The U23 women's race will be followed by U23 men at approximately 11:50 p.m. Chia time, and the senior women are slated to start at 12:30 p.m. Chia time. For more on the European Cross Country Championships fans can visit the
event website here, follow @Euro_Cross on twitter, and use the hashtags #Chia2016 #EuroCross across social media.
