LONDON – Two San Francisco Dons will toe the line on the world stage in the upcoming IAAF World Championships, which commences from London Stadium tomorrow and runs through Aug. 13. Reigning NCAA 10,000 meter champion, Charlotte Taylor, competes for Great Britain in her specialty event on the track, and alumna and 2016 Olympian Maor Tiyouri '14 will again represent Israel in the marathon.

Taylor, a native of Spalding, England, stands as USF's first-ever USF woman to win a national championship, and her school-record and NCAA-best 10,000 meter time on the season (32:11.80) earned her a qualifying mark and eventual team selection for the World Championships field.

Taylor, an accomplished triathlete and winner of the 2013 U-20 ITU Olympic Distance World Triathlon Championships, began focusing her energies on running when she came to USF in the fall of 2015. Since that time, she's become an All-American in cross country, track & field and academically.

"This is an incredible opportunity for Charlotte to experience athletics on the world's highest stage," USF head coach Helen Lehman-Winters said. "Since she is so new to this level, we just want her to soak it all up and enjoy the experience. She has another entire year in the NCAA but this will provide her with the foundation to build upon for her future pursuit of the 2020 Olympic Games. 

"We are very confident that she is much better than her PB that she ran at Stanford earlier in the year.  There is so going to be so much energy in that stadium so she is going to have to be really patient the first 3,000 to 5,000 meters. Charlotte has great racing intuition and so as long as she is patient and she trust her ability, she will be very effective."

Also taking part in the World Championships is Tiyouri, a recent Olympic marathoner in the 2016 Rio Games and graduate of the Dons in 2014. Tiyouri was a member of four West Coast Conference championship cross country teams and made two trips to the NCAA Championships with the Dons. She was also a three-time NCAA qualifier on the track, including two semifinal appearances in the 10,000 meters.

After college, Tiyouri increased her distance to the marathon, and qualified for the Olympics in her first-ever go at the 26.2 mile distance, finishing seventh at the 2016 Ottawa Marathon, and then taking 90th out of 157 marathon competitors in Rio.

"We were so fortunate to have had Maor in our program and on four of our conference championship teams," noted Lehman-Winters. "She made tremendous jump in qualifying for the Rio Olympics, and I know she learned a lot from that experience. Competing at the World Championships will provide her with another opportunity of competing at the highest level and it is going to be wonderful to see her represent her country on the world stage."

Held every two years, the London Championships will be the 16th in the event's 34-year history, and the first in the United Kingdom. Cities world-wide have been selected to host throughout the years: from the first IAAF World Championships in Helsinki in 1983 to stops in Spain, France, South Korea, Canada and Germany, to the upcoming hosts of Qatar (2019) and the United States (2021).

This year's competition from London brings a record 2,038 athletes from 205 to the British capital. Action from the London Stadium, venue of the 2012 Olympic Games, will be available to watch across all the IAAF's continental areas via a combination of coverage on the channels of several broadcasters and a geo-blocked live stream which will be available in more than 140 countries.

Taylor will take off from the line on Aug. 5, the second day of the competition. The 10,000 meter start is set for 12:10 p.m. Pacific/8:10 p.m. London time. Tiyouri's marathon is slated for the next morning, as the women set off at 6 a.m. Pacific / 2 p.m. London time.