USA Track & Field, Associate Director of LDR Programs/Marketing (317) 713-4661; [email protected]
Ritzenhein, Brown enter USA Cross Country Championships
INDIANAPOLIS - Two-time Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein (Eugene, Ore.) and top U.S. finisher at last year's World Cross Country Championships Emily Brown
(Minneapolis, Minn.), have entered the 2009 USA Cross Country
Championships, USA Track & Field announced Thursday. The
championships will be hosted by the Montgomery Country Road Runners
Club at the Agriculture Farm Park in Derwood, Maryland on February 7.
In
addition to the national titles up for grabs in Derwood, open and
junior men and women will qualify to represent Team USA at the IAAF
World Cross Country Championships March 28 in Amman, Jordan.
The
runner-up at last weekend's USA Half Marathon Championships, Ritzenhein
will be seeking his third USA Cross Country title. He will face
competition from fellow Beijing Olympians Jorge Torres (Boulder, Colo.) and Anthony Famiglietti (Knoxville, Tenn.).
Also vying for men's team positions will be 2008 NCAA 5,000 meter champion Bobby Curtis (Ardmore, Pa.), along with 2007 NCAA Cross Country All-Americans Brent Vaughan (Boulder, Colo.) from the University of Colorado and Sean Quigley (Philadelphia, Pa.) from LaSalle University.
Brown,
who finished third at the 2008 championships and was 18th at the IAAF
World Cross Country Championships in leading the U.S. women to a
fourth-place team finish, will join 2008 Olympian at 10,000 meters Amy Yoder-Begley (Portland, Ore.) and training mate Katie McGregor (St. Louis Park, Minn.) in the race for the women's title.
Highlights
of the 2009 USA Cross Country Championships will be televised on
February 15 during ESPN coverage of the Tyson Invitational. The
championships will consist of six cross country championship races for
men's and women's categories with national titles on the line for
junior, masters and open divisions. The nation's premier cross country
event, the Championships will feature $47,000 in prize money.
For more information on the 2009 USA Cross Country Championships visit www.usatf.org.
About USA Track & Field
USA
Track & Field (USATF) is the National Governing Body for track and
field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States.
USATF encompasses the world's oldest organized sports, some of the
most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the #1 high school and
junior high school participatory sport and more than 30 million adult
runners in the United States.
