Team USA Selects Former Cougar Makenna Smith for Great Edinburgh Challenge

Former BYU and All-West Coast Conference First Team cross country runner, Makenna Smith, will represent Team USA at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country Challenge. Smith was selected based on her performance at the USATF Club Cross Country National Championships.

The race will be held at Holyrood Park in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Jan. 13, 2018. Team USA will compete against Team Europe and Team Great Britain. Athletes compete across five races; the junior men’s 6K, the junior women’s 4K, senior men’s 8K, senior women’s 6K and the co-ed 4x1K relay (teams of two men and two women).

Team USA will race 17 men and 17 women in Edinburgh. Smith will be one of nine Team USA runners competing in the senior women’s 6K. She currently runs for Cal Coast Track Club and has done additional training back in Utah and at BYU.

Smith ran on BYU’s cross country team and track and field team from 2011-2015. She was a two-time Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Scholar-Athlete. Her senior year she finished sixth place in the West Coast Conference Championship women’s 6K with a time of 20:04.

The event schedule can be found on greatrun.org. Information on Team USA and how to follow the action can be found on usaft.org.