2025 USA XC preview: Who will represent Team USA at World XC in Tallahassee?
The most exciting USA XC champs in a generation are in Portland on Saturday
By Jonathan Gault
For fans of American distance running, Saturday’s USATF Cross Country Championships in Portland, Ore., is one of the most compelling events of the entire 2025 season. I’m not being hyperbolic. If you are not already excited, allow me to make the case for why you should watch on Saturday:
1) Star power. Yes, there are a few high-profile absences. But many of America’s top 5k/10k runners — particularly on the men’s side — will be in Portland this weekend. Nico Young, Graham Blanks, Cooper Teare, Parker Wolfe, Abdihamid Nur, Shelby Houlihan, Karissa Schweizer, Weini Kelati, and Parker Valby are all entered. As is Katelyn Tuohy. This is the most loaded USA XC field since at least the epic 2007 event in Boulder.
2) Genuine stakes. Pro runners aren’t used to meaningful races in the month of December, but the stakes on Saturday are very real. The top six finishers in each race earn a spot on Team USA for January’s World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee — the first World XC held on US soil in 34 years. And given the quality of the fields in Portland, the six runners who comprise Team USA could have a shot at a team medal at Worlds.
3) Unpredictability. Many of these athletes have not raced seriously since the track season, so we don’t know where each of their fitness levels are at. And after the high school NXN races in the morning and consistent rain in the forecast on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the course at Glendoveer Golf Course could turn into a slopfest by the time the senior 10k races go off on Saturday afternoon. The current race-day forecast calls for a high of 54 degrees Fahrenheit and rain in the late morning/early afternoon; ideally, course conditions will be tough enough to make things interesting but not so muddy as to devolve into farce.
It’s a pretty simple equation. Star power + genuine stakes + unpredictability = compelling product. There’s even a nice warmup with a pair of 2k races featuring the likes of Ethan Strand, Craig Engels, Vincent Ciattei, Sage Hurta-Klecker, Emily Mackay, and Addy Wiley, with the top two in each race qualifying for the 4 x 2k mixed relay at World XC.
After next year, World XC will not be held again until 2029, and wherever it is, I can promise you the US trials won’t be nearly as good as this one. So make sure you savor Saturday’s event in Portland.
With that as prologue, let’s dig into the races. Below, I analyze the main contenders and make some predictions along the way about who will represent Team USA in Tallahassee.
If you’d like to give us your picks for TEAM USA and play in our prediction contest do so here. It takes like 2 minutes to enter.
Meet details
What: 2025-26 USATF Cross Country Championships
When: Saturday, December 6
Where: Glendoveer Golf Course, Portland, Ore.
How to watch: Live on USATF.TV (2k races begin at 3:30 p.m. ET, 10k races start at 3:55 p.m. ET). NXN/RunnerSpace will also stream the race for free here.
*Entries *Course map
Men’s 10K race
The favorites
Graham Blanks, Nico Young
Blanks and Young are the two names that stand out in the entries. Blanks won the 2023 and 2024 NCAA XC titles for Harvard, was an Olympic finalist in the 5,000, and made this year’s Worlds team in the 10,000. Young finished in the top 11 at NCAA XC four times for NAU, is the US champion at 10,000, and won a Diamond League this year.
Given the unpredictability of the course (there have been some huge upsets recently at NXN in Portland) and the lack of recent races, I am reluctant to call anyone a “lock” for the World XC team. But Blanks and Young are two studs in their prime with cross country pedigrees. And after speaking with Blanks’ coach Alex Gibby at NCAAs, I know for a fact that Blanks is fit and treating this race very seriously. It is very likely that one of these two is your winner on Saturday.
One fun fact about this duo is that they have raced each other on this course before when they were seniors in high school. Back in 2019, Young won NXN in a then-course record of 14:52 for 5k while Blanks was 28th in 15:37.
Team USA so far: Blanks, Young
2025 track stars
Drew Hunter, Cooper Teare, Parker Wolfe, Thomas Ratcliffe, Woody Kincaid, Sean McGorty, Morgan Beadlescomb, Ahmed Muhumed, Olin Hacker, Drew Bosley, Liam Murphy
Our next crop of contenders includes guys who ran fast on the track in 2025 and/or came close to making the Worlds team on the track. I expect three or four guys from this group to make the team. A closer look at a few of them:
- Drew Hunter: Hunter did not live up to the hype of the massive adidas contract he signed coming out of high school in 2016, only making one US World/Olympic team (which he missed due to injury) and suffering through long periods where health issues limited his ability to train. But he has revived his career recently, finishing 4th in the Olympic Trials 10k in 2024 and missing out on a spot on the most competitive US 5,000 team ever this year by just .11. He was a dominant Foot Locker XC champ in high school as well.
- Cooper Teare: Teare won the US XC title in 2024 but chose not to race at World XC to focus on the Olympic Trials…where he proceeded to finish 10th in the 1500 and 12th in the 5k. Teare has run 12:54 for 5k (#6 in US history) and has an opportunity to shine here with the likes of Cole Hocker and Grant Fisher sitting out.
- Parker Wolfe: Wolfe was only 6th at USAs in the 5,000 this year after finishing 3rd the year before, but that was after missing time at the end of the NCAA season due to injury. If he has continued to train well in the last four months under new coach Mike Smith, his ceiling is as high as anyone in this group’s.
- Ahmed Muhumed: Muhumed, who was born in a Somali region of Ethiopia and moved to the US in 2011, has quietly put together some strong results in recent years. He was 3rd at USA XC in 2024 (35th at World XC) and 4th at the US Half Marathon champs and the USA 10,000 on the track in 2025. He was 20th at NCAA XC running on his home course at Florida State in 2021 and is a serious threat to make the team for another home race in 2026.
- Drew Bosley: As discussed on this week’s Track Talk podcast, Bosley was NAU’s #1 man at NCAA XC in 2019 as a true freshman, well ahead of fellow true freshman Cole Hocker (and redshirt freshmen like Dylan Jacobs and Abdihamud Nur) and was a key part of their three-peat in the 2020s, finishing 13th, 3rd, and 5th in his last three NCAA XC appearances. Bosley, now a member of Mike Smith’s Nike Swoosh TC Flagstaff, hasn’t quite shown the same form in 2025 since missing most of 2024 with injury, but the talent is there.
Any of these guys could realistically make the team on Saturday, and maybe one of them even pulls a surprise by hanging with Blanks and Young up front. I’ll say that Hunter, Teare, and Wolfe, three guys who have been close to making US teams on the track in recent years, will seize this opportunity and make one in XC.
Team USA so far: Blanks, Young, Hunter, Teare, Wolfe
Wild cards
Rocky Hansen, Anthony Rotich, Abdihamid Nur, Wesley Kiptoo, Dan Michalski, Paul Chelimo
Of this group, Hansen is the most dangerous: we know he’s in shape (he just finished 2nd at NCAA XC) and though I could have included him in the previous category (he ran 13:07 on the track this year, become the youngest American in history to break 13:10), I’m lumping him in with the wild cards since he is 20 years old and still in college. Rotich was the top American at World XC in 2024 (21st) but he’s also 35 and is looking past his prime — he didn’t even make the steeple final at USAs this year. Nur, the 2023 US champion at 5,000, has the highest ceiling of this group but he has yet to show he is fully recovered from tearing the posterior tibial tendon in his foot at the 2024 Olympics.
Wesley Kiptoo, who only became eligible to represent the US in October, was a cross country beast in college (2nd and 3rd at NCAA XC) but is bouncing back from running 2:09 at the Chicago Marathon on October 12. Michalski is coming off a career year in the steeple after finishing 9th at Worlds. Chelimo is 35 and has barely raced in 2025, but he is a two-time Olympic medalist, so I’m mentioning him just in case.
Of this group, I’m most bullish on Hansen and Kiptoo (I’m not convinced Nur is ready yet) and will say Hansen makes it. He’s young, hungry, and has nothing to lose, which is a dangerous combination for this race.
Final picks for Team USA: Blanks, Young, Hunter, Teare, Wolfe, Hansen
Women’s 10K race
The favorites
Weini Kelati, Shelby Houlihan
Houlihan won USA XC in her last appearance in 2019
Similar to the men’s race, you can make a case for either of these women to be the favorite on Saturday. The last time Kelati ran USA XC, in 2024, she won by 37 seconds. Since then, she has won the Olympic Trials 10,000 and set the American record in the half (66:09). Kelati is the only woman in history to win Foot Locker, NCAA, and USA XC titles, and we just saw her dust the field at the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving. She is as safe a bet as there is to make this team.
Houlihan was also a convincing winner at USA XC the last time she ran it — granted that was all the way back in 2019, before her doping suspension. Houlihan is just coming off a 4th-place finish at Worlds in the 5,000 where she lost to three complete studs — Beatrice Chebet, Faith Kipyegon, Nadia Battocletti — and is hoping to make every US team she can after sitting out four years. I could see Kelati breaking her with a mile or two to go, but if it comes down to a kick, Houlihan will be favored.
Team USA so far: Kelati, Houlihan
Runners who have been in form in 2025
Carrie Ellwood, Grace Hartman, Emma Grace Hurley, Karissa Schweizer, Emily Venters, Olivia Markezich
The depth here is not as strong as on the men’s side, but I still expect a couple of women from this group to make the team. Schweizer is clearly the leading candidate. She’s a former NCAA XC champion and has been a fixture on US national teams in recent years — though she was only 6th in the 5k and 10k at USAs this year. Still, that’s better than anyone entered at USA XC not named Kelati or Houlihan.
Ellwood (formerly Carrie Verdon) is actually the reigning USA XC champ — she won the sparsely-attended meet in Lubbock in January — and just ran 68:34 to win the Monumental Half Marathon in Indianapolis, so she’s in decent shape. Hurley also has recent success at USA XC (2nd in 2024) and ran a 68:02 half in Valencia in October. Neither are big names but they’re both contenders to make the team.
Markezich was 3rd at NCAA XC in 2023 and ran a steeple pb this summer (9:14), Venters has run 14:58 this year, and Hartman has also run 14:58 and just finished 6th at NCAA XC two weeks ago. Hartman is the top collegian entered after BYU’s Jane Hedengren and Riley Chamberlain opted to race at Boston University this weekend instead.
Schweizer is the class of this group when she’s fit and healthy and is an obvious pick for the team. Hurley has had some nice success on the roads this year, so I’ll pick her as well.
Team USA so far: Kelati, Houlihan, Schweizer, Hurley
Former NCAA XC champions on the comeback trail
Ednah Kurgat, Katelyn Tuohy, Parker Valby
Tuohy, the 2022 NCAA XC champ at NC State, missed time in the spring with an Achilles injury and was only 19th at USAs in the 5,000 after making it back this summer. Meanwhile Kurgat, the 2017 champ for New Mexico, and Valby, the 2023 champ for Florida, have combined to race just five times this year.
I’m most optimistic about Valby. She had the longest layoff in 2025, not racing at all from February to November, during which time she moved from Boston back to Gainesville and switched out new coach Mark Coogan for her old coach Will Palmer. But Valby looked solid in her return to action at the Dash to the Finish Line 5K in New York on November 1, finishing 4th against a good field, and was in high spirits after the race. Valby gets in shape quickly, so assuming she has had no hiccups since then, she should be competitive on Saturday. One wonders how she will handle the mud, though she dominated at a wet and windy Nuttycombe Invite in 2023.
Tuohy wasn’t competitive at USAs on the track this year, but she did run 15:04 for 5,000 in June, just one second off her pb. The question is whether she has progressed at all since then, since that level of fitness may not be enough to make the team. Tuohy also doesn’t have much 10k experience (she has only run one, winning the ACC 10k in 2023), and she pulled out of the Dash to the Finish Line 5K last month with a foot issue. So there is some concern about her readiness, but the fact that she is running suggests that she thinks she is ready.
At 34, Kurgat is more than a decade older than Valby and Tuohy (Editor’s note: that may seem hard to believe since Kurgat was running in the NCAA for New Mexico in 2019, but her last NCAA race came nine days before her 28th birthday), but she did win USA XC in 2023 and was a strong 2nd in the US 20k champs on September 1. If she is healthy, I like her chances to run well on Saturday.
One other honorary member of this group is Elly Henes, the daughter or NC State coach Laurie Henes. Henes, who trains with Tuohy in Raleigh, never won an NCAA XC title, but she did win a 5,000 title on the track. And her pbs of 14:47/30:48 are actually faster than Tuohy’s and Valby’s. Henes has suffered two collapsed lungs in two years, which has wreaked havoc with her training, but she has the talent to make this team.
Of this group, Valby is trending in the right direction and I expect her to make the team. I’ll add Kurgat in as the final member based on her XC pedigree and strong run at the US 20k.
My final picks for Team USA: Kelati, Houlihan, Schweizer, Hurley, Valby, Kurgat
The 2k races
Key men’s entrants: Vincent Ciattei, Craig Engels, Sam Gilman, Kasey Knevelbaard, Brandon Miller, Ethan Strand
Key women’s entrants: Sage Hurta-Klecker, Dani Jones, Emily Mackay, Addy Wiley
Forecasting a 2k XC race in December is even tougher than a 10k, but if I’m making picks, I’m taking Strand and Ciattei, who were significantly faster than anyone else in this race in the 1500 this year (Strand also has top-10 NCAA XC pedigree). On the women’s side, I’ll go with the former NCAA XC champ Jones and the 1500m Olympian Mackay. That would be a very solid relay squad to take to Tallahassee.
UPDATE: Nick Willis has told us that Jones, who runs for Very Nice Track Club, will be running the 10k and not the 2k at USA XC. As a former NCAA XC champ, she’s definitely a dark horse to make the team.
Who do you think will make the team? Give us you picks on our world-famous messageboard/fan forum: MB USATF Cross Country Champs.Who makes the world team? Come back to the homepage later this week as we are going to have some sort of poll/prediction contest where you can make your picks so we can see what the masses are thinking.
LetsRun.com Worlds Prediction Contest: If you’d like to give us your picks for TEAM USA and play in our prediction contest do so here. It takes like 2 minutes to enter.
