US qualifier for World XC 26

Apparently USATF will run Club Nats and the US XC Champs on the same day or weekend in early December 2025, both at the Tallahassee course.

Hopefully it happened in mid December, not early December. Early December is when NXN and Foot Locker happen, and many of the U20 runners are in high school. So maybe the weekend after Foot Locker.

I sincerely hope that this is not the case, though I'm guessing it'll still be somewhere warm. North Carolina? Maybe Charlottesville will put in a bid?

Why wouldn't you want the qualification meet to be at the same course as the World Championships? Wouldn't it be good for the US athletes to get experience running on the World Championships course?

Earlier poster already said that it would be at Tallahassee. Yes, anything else would be stupid - but wouldn't put it past USATF. I guess the concern could be if the course gets damaged by the trials if poor weather, but then a major hurricane could also wreck the area a couple of months before for that matter.

As to HS meets for U20 - choose, represent your country at home or go in a silly HS race. The West kids already have to choose between NXN and Footlocker. The College kids (born before Sept) will be eligible, should be lots to choose from who don't make it to NCAA, or even if they do, if the racing season is structured towards it. May impact indoors, but these are freshman anyway. The kids going to College born in 2006 will not be eligible (missing out by 10 days), but the 2007 kids will be eligible.

Is it a fast course? And is it exactly 10k or could it be slightly shorter as well? So that ”heavier” track/road runners like ingebrigtsen, Almgren, nordås might be interested in running.

You can't damage an XC course

The plan being discussed is is to move the 2025 Club Nationals to the day following the Worlds (Sunday Jan 11 2026) titled "2025-2026 Season Club Championship", run the Open Trials which will be the "2025-2026 Season Winter Nationals" in early/mid December, and have a hybrid selection process for the U20 team - not all coming from any U20 trials race.

Not terribly fast but not slow either and very close to accurate. It's mostly well drained, about half is grass (but fairly hard soil) and the other half is mostly crushed limestone (or is it sea shells?). We ran one year and it rained all night and into the morning. By the time we raced you could hardly tell. It has one hill, they make a big deal about it but it's not much of a hill other than you have to run it 5 times. I think that hill could get a little muddy or slippery in a downpour.

January 10th (Saturday):

worldathletics.org

Home | Tallahassee, FL 26 | World Athletics Cross Country Championships

World Athletics Cross Country Championships Tallahassee26

Link:worldathletics.org/competitions/world-...

Current USATF.org calendar only updated through July 31 - Aug 3, 2025 USA T&F Champs.

Most likely the 2026 USA XC Champs qualifier races will be held early December 2025.

Just keeping fingers crossed that top US distance runners (Grant, Elise, others) who likely will race the Tokyo WC Sept 13 - 21, 2025 will still want to race the USA XC Champs just three months later while still just doing fall conditioning training.

What exactly is a "hybrid" selection process? You mean not have any U20 race at all and just take the top 2 freshman in NCAA, top 2 at NXN, and top 2 at Foot Locker?

Man the "year of birth" rule sucks for u20s this year. There are kids born in late 2006 who will be 19 and a few months who will be ineligible. If the race was only 10 days earlier they would be good. Rules are rules I guess, probably happens every year. Is there a reason it isn't just based off of your age on race day? I'm assuming it is to avoid complications with kids actually born on the race date, and the fact that the date would change every year, etc.

Also wonder what the U20 "hybrid" process would look like, and if the ineligible 2006 kids would be allowed to run the prelims. As they would still be within a valid year in late 2025.

This is not true - Club Nats will be the same weekend as worlds, not USAs

That's what I heard - they will be holding Club Cross Country the same weekend in January 2026 as World's in Tallahassee (so no club xc race in the year 2025). I don't know how that will work for the regular folks since generally all the non-elite xc races end in November - are they expecting all the club people to just ramp back up for January after the fall season? Tallahassee typically draws only half of what the other sites draw for clubs.

USA Championships in 2025 will be in Lubbock, TX. I don't know what they are qualifying for at that race.

USATF has not updated its website.

I’m shocked! They’re such a professional, well-run organization! And their communications are always timely and useful!