BATHURST, Australia — For the first time since 2019, athletes from across the globe will gather Saturday for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, hosted this year at Mount Panorama Farm in New South Wales. Team USATF is sending a full-strength squad in each division and has some of the top distance athletes from the senior and junior ranks. The U.S. teams were chosen primarily at the USATF Cross Country Championships in Mechanicsville, Virginia, last month, with champions from the open men's and women's races and the U20 men's and women's events leading the way. An American team last made the podium in 2013 when the senior men were runners-up to Ethiopia, scoring 52 points to 38 for the winners. Ben True was the top men's individual for the U.S. in sixth, with Chris Derrick taking 10th. Team USATF's women were third in 2011 behind the superb bronze medal effort in the individual race from Shalane Flanagan. Competition gets under way with the 8km Mixed Relay, followed by the women's U20 6km, men's U20 8km, senior women's 10km and finally the senior men's 10km. The weather forecast is calling for temperatures in the upper 90s at race time. Ednah Kurgat, the 2017 NCAA champion for New Mexico who won her first USATF national title with a 32:07 10km clocking at Mechanicsville, heads a strong women's squad that includes some of the top finishers from that race. She will be joined by fourth-place finisher Emily Lipari and Weini Kelati, who was fifth. Kelati was the silver medalist at the 2022 USATF Cross Country Championships and won the 2019 NCAA individual title for New Mexico. Former Arkansas star Katie Izzo helped her school to the team title at the 2019 NCAA Championships with a third-place effort behind Kelati. Allie Buchalski is the final member of the squad, bringing sub-15:00 5,000m track credentials from 2021 to go with extensive cross country experience. Men's senior hopes rest with a six-person group that has USATF champion Emmanuel Bor, who was on the 2019 World Cross Country team and has 13:00.48 5,000m speed on the track. Two-time World Cross Country team member Andrew Colley ran the U20 race in 2010 and was on the long course senior team in 2015. 2020 USATF XC champion Anthony Rotich won three NCAA steeplechase titles for UTEP, and Sam Chelanga placed 11th at the 2017 World XC Championships to go with a pair of NCAA individual golds while a student at Liberty University in 2009-10. Dillon Maggard was the runner-up at the 2022 USATF XC meet and was the NACAC 10,000m silver medalist last summer. Sporting a half marathon best of 61:45, Reid Buchanan was the 2019 Pan American Games 10,000m silver medalist. For only the third time there will be a senior mixed relay, with two women and two men running 2km legs each. Team USATF's women have a very strong pair of representatives in 2017 world 3,000m steeplechase champion Emma Coburn, who formerly held the American record in that event and took bronze at the Rio 2016 Olympics, and Heather MacLean, the NACAC 1,500m champion who has a PB of 3:58.76 and was seventh at last year's World Indoor Championships. Another steeplechaser, Jordan Mann, is a veteran of the event after helping the U.S. to a fourth-place finish in the mixed relay in 2019, and Alec Basten boasts a steeple PB of 8:22.22 to go with a 10th-place Olympic Trials finish in 2021. Bidding for a place on the podium for the first time ever, the U20 women's team is one of the most talented in recent memory. Only one U.S. U20 woman has ever finished in the top three, 1991 bronze medalist Melody Fairchild, but USATF champion Irene Riggs would love to change that. Riggs ran away with the NXN Nike Cross Nationals title before taking the USATF gold and is a savvy racer. She has Ellie Shea, the runner-up at the CHAMPS Sports National XC Championships and USATF silver medalist, along with 2022 USATF U20 winner Zariel Macchia. Karrie Baloga was 11th at the World U20 Championships in the 3,000m steeplechase last summer, while Eva Klingbeil helped North Carolina's women to a fifth-place team finish at the NCAA Championships in the fall. Allie Zeeland won the mile at the 2022 adidas Indoor Nationals and was fourth at the Garmin RunningLane XC Nationals. Where the women's U20 team leans heavily on high school athletes this year, the U.S. men's U20 squad is made up of four collegians and two prep athletes. Leo Young is the first high schooler, and he is a good one, winning the national title by seven seconds and sporting a 4:00.77 mile PB on the track. Wisconsin's Micah Wilson was the USATF silver medalist and has a strong long distance background on the track, while Villanova's Marco Langon ran on his school's team at the NCAA Championships in November. Washington's Evan Jenkins and Max Sannes of Air Force Academy are solid, as is Indiana high schooler Kole Mathison, who won the CHAMPS Sports National XC Championships and placed fourth at the NXN Nike Cross Nationals. United States men's U20 teams won four straight world titles from 1974-77, but haven't been on the podium since they took bronze in 1982. Dathan Ritzenhein is the last American U20 man to medal individually, earning bronze in 2001. A full schedule of events and live results can be found here. Join the conversation with USATF on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtag #JourneyToGold.