AMMAN (JT) - A large number of USA team athletes will make their international debuts this weekend at the 37th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Amman on March 28, according to a statement from organisers.

“It’s cool being here,” USA Cross Country Championships bronze medallist Bobby Curtis, who will make his senior international debut and also his first competitive outing outside of his home country, was quoted in the statement as saying. “We’re visiting the Dead Sea and Petra, so hopefully we’ll get the whole experience.”

The event, to be held at Bisharat Golf Club, is being billed as Jordan’s biggest ever and represents the opportunity for US athletes to compete in a team with genuine medal potential.

In recent years, US distance running has been dominated by a limited number of individual superstars, but over the past decade there has been a gradual progression towards a consistently higher level of performance in a greater number of athletes. “Going back to the early 2000s we had Olympic medal winning athletes in Meb Keflezighi (men’s marathon silver medallist in 2004) and Deena Kastor (women’s marathon bronze medallist in 2004),” USA team leader, Jim Estes, was quoted as saying in the statement. “As a result of that there was a real collective effort in the US to set up unique training groups with different coaches across the country, and they’ve now raised the game.”

“We’re missing a couple of guys, but we’ve still got a strong team here in Jordan. That’s the nice thing, for a while we only had one or two athletes who were really competitive in international races, and they were a point of inspiration, but now we’ve really strong teams as a whole, so it’s been a nice progression for us,” Estes added.

The potential of the 2009 USA junior men’s team goes some way to demonstrating this.

Individually, German Fernandez, two-time USA Junior Cross Country champion who earlier this year ran the fastest ever indoor mile by a junior (3:56.50), is the USA’s biggest medal hope. He finished 25th in Edinburgh in 2008 and has demonstrated top 10 potential, but it’s the team medal opportunity which excites Estes most.

Fernandez leads a quartet including Chris Derrick, runner-up in the recent USA Cross Country Championships, Luke Puskedra, who finished third and Ryan Hill, in addition to Syracuse University teammates Patrick DuPont and Francisco Medrano, who repeatedly race at a high level together. “I think it’s going to be a really good team dynamic,” Fernandez said in the statement.

The senior athletes on the team are equally positive about their chances.

“I think this team is just as strong as it was when we finished sixth in Edinburgh,” Ed Moran, senior men team member, was quoted in the statement as saying. “We are less experienced with a lot of first timers, but we have a lot of guys who have come out of successful collegiate careers and have stepped up well - I’m fairly confident we can perform well.”

“This is my fifth World Cross in five years,” said Kathy Newberry [senior women] in the statement. “Last year we finished fourth team and we packed really well. This year we have a young team but there are a lot of really fit, talented, first timers. They’re doing a heck of a job.”

More than 700 athletes from 63 countries are expected for the event which gets underway on Saturday with the opening ceremony at 1:30pm, followed by the junior women’s race - the first race of four - at 2:30pm. The final event will take place at 4:30pm.