Emily Durgin, a Standish native who now lives and trains in Arizona, crosses the finish line to place second among women at the 2022 Beach to Beacon 10K in Cape Elizabeth. Brianna Soukup / Portland Press Herald

Two women who grew up in Maine and one of the most decorated Olympic distance runners of all time are among the professional women’s entry list for this year’s TD Beach to Beacon 10K.

Maine natives Emily Durgin and Rachel (Schneider) Smith are top contenders for the $10,000 women’s first prize on Aug. 3 in Cape Elizabeth. A total prize purse of $90,000 will be offered, including $5,000 for the top American male and female finishers.

No American woman has won the race, which Joan Benoit Samuelson founded in 1998.

To make history, Durgin and Smith – along with fellow American contenders Aubrey Frentheway (world cross country champion) and Jenny Simpson (Olympic bronze medalist) – will have to beat a field with significant talent from East Africa, including three-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion Tirunesh Dibaba, 38, of Ethiopia.

Dibaba, a mother of three children, recently returned to competition after a nearly five-year break while raising her family. Dibaba competed on the track and medaled in four straight Olympics, from 2004 to 2016. She won both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 10,000 at the 2012 Games in London. At world championship meets, Dibaba won the 10,000 three times and the 5,000 twice.

The closest an American woman has come to winning Beach to Beacon was more than two decades ago, when Libbie Hickman was second to Catherine Ndereba of Kenya in 1998 and again in 2000, when both runners clocked in the same time.

As happens during Olympic years, the international field is a little light.

Durgin is the only other American woman to place second, finishing nine seconds behind Fentaye Belayneh of Ethiopia in 2022, when the race returned to Cape Elizabeth after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID pandemic. Ben True, who grew up in Cumberland, is the only American man to win, pulling it off in 2016, which was also an Olympic year.

Kenya will still be well represented, led by two-time marathon world champion Edna Kiplagat, 44, who finished third at the 2024 Boston Marathon and fifth at the 2023 Beach to Beacon.

Durgin, who turned 30 in May, grew up in Standish and starred in high school at Cheverus and Bonny Eagle before being an All-American at the University of Connecticut. She did not run Beach to Beacon last summer. Durgin attempted to make this year’s U.S. Olympic marathon team but finished ninth at the marathon trials in Orlando, Florida. Since then, she was second (and the top American) at the USATF 10-mile championship in Washington, D.C., earning her first national road race championship. She also placed fourth (top American) at the Bolder Boulder 10K in Boulder, Colorado; sixth (second American) at the Mastercard Mini 10K in New York City; and eighth (top American) at the Boston Athletic Association 10K on June 23.

Smith, who turned 33 in July, is a Sanford native who went to high school at St. Thomas Aquinas in Dover, New Hampshire, where she won multiple New England track championships before an All-America career at Georgetown. She competed in the 10,000 meters at the 2021 Summer Olympics, reaching the final. Earlier this year, she won the USATF 15K national championship road race in Jacksonville, Florida. Smith had hoped to qualify for her second Olympics but came up short at the U.S. trials, finishing ninth in the 5,000 and dropping out with about seven laps to go in the 10,000.

Smith has run the Beach to Beacon twice. She was fifth in 2022 and 12th last year, a little more than three months after giving birth to her daughter, Nova.

Two young Maine women will likely get to start with the elite women: Ruth White of Orono and Teanne Ewings of Houlton.

White, the three-time New England cross country champion who will be running for the University of New Hampshire this fall, was afforded that opportunity last year and wound up first among Maine women, which is a separate prize category. Ewings, the 2024 Varsity Maine Girls Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year, will be a home-schooled senior and competes for Greater Houlton Christian Academy. She set Class C meet records in the 1,600 and 3,200 this spring, and placed second in the 3,200 at the New England championships. Ewings also finished second to White at the New England cross country meet.

On the men’s side, Connor Mantz of Logan, Utah, will not return because he’s a member of the U.S. Olympic marathon team. Mantz finished second last August in a heated, physical finish.

Mathew Kemeli of Kenya, the 2022 Beach to Beacon champ, is returning. Expected challengers include Peter Mwaniki Aila of Kenya, Gebresilase Tadese Worku of Ethiopia, and American Drew Hunter, who finished fourth at the U.S. Olympic Trials in just his second career 10,000-meter track race.

The Maine men’s field looks strong. Defending champ Matt Rand of Cape Elizabeth will be back. Luke Marsanskis of Cumberland broke the University of Maine 10,000-meter record this spring and competed at the NCAA championships. Two-time Beach to Beacon winner Jesse Orach of Auburn and U.S. marathon trials qualifier Ryan Jara of Gorham are also threats.