Three University of Victoria Vikes cross country runners, including former Campbell River Comets Track and Field Club star Stephanie Trenholm, and two coaches will be part of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport national team to compete in Poland this spring for the 18th FISU World University Cross Country Championships.

The competition is set for Saturday, April 14 in Lodz, Poland's third largest city situated approximately 135 kilometres south-west of Warsaw.Vikes associate coach Keith Butler will be joined by Ingrid Ruys, a Vikes coach based in Alberta, at the event along with runners Trenholm, Cliff Childs and Dylan Haight. For Trenholm and Childs, it's their first international racing experience.

"Keith being named head coach is a show of the work that he's put into this program and how he's established himself not only as an associate coach here but as a coach within the CIS," said Vikes head coach Brent Fougner."That's one of the reasons we have him here, because he's a very good coach. He's going to do wonders for our program here.""Any time you make your first national team, it's a pretty exciting moment," Fougner said. "Stephanie is pretty excited about this. Her strength is probably on the track but to get international experience in any level of racing is pretty important for development.""She's looking forward to it," Fougner added. "She's got a lot of upside to her in the future, she's really come into her own this year. I think we're going to really see her take off this year."

"And this will also be Cliff's first international experience and for all three of them, at FISU cross country it is achievable to run well there," Fougner said. "It's not dominated by the African nations like you experience in world cross. We're racing against a lot of European countries and the races are close, it's a great cultural experience for them, too. So it's a very good introduction to international competition for our athletes."

Canada is coming off its best-ever performance at the biennial event, which was held on Canadian soil for the first time in history in 2010. The women captured team bronze on the course of Fort Henry Hill in Kingston, Ont., while the men finished just outside the podium, in fourth place.

Rounding out the women's squad are University of Toronto's Tamara Jewett, University of Victoria's Stephanie Trenholm and Laval University's Catherine Cormier. On the men's side, the red and white team is completed by University of Windsor teammates Matt Walters and Paul Janikowski, as well as Dylan Haight and Cliff Childs, both from UVic.

All 11 runners were named allCanadians this past season after finishing in the Top 14 at the CIS championships in Quebec City, including first-team nods for Jewett (second), Thompson (fourth), Trenholm (fifth), Cormier (sixth), Frost (seventh), Walters (third), Janikowski (fifth), Hendrix (sixth) and Brett (seventh).

Great Britain is the reigning women's team champion after finishing ahead of Australia and Canada two years ago. Japan captured the men's crown at Fort Henry Hill, with Spain and Great Britain rounding out the podium.