North Yarmouth native Ben True will return to Maine to compete in the Beach to Beacon 10K road race Aug. 1 in Cape Elizabeth.

A two-time winner of the Maine men’s category, True now runs professionally, and lives and trains in New Hampshire. He placed third in last year’s Beach to Beacon behind a pair of Kenyans and will head to China later in August to compete in the world outdoor track and field championships at 5,000 meters in Beijing.

True finished second at both 5,000 and 10,000 meters in the national championships in Oregon in late June to earn a spot on the United States team for the world meet, but at the time had met only the longer race’s qualifying standard. He flew to Europe last week in hopes of achieving the 13:23 necessary for the 5,000-meter standard and in a race Saturday in Belgium placed third in 13:06.

“I just wanted to get the standard out of the way,” True said in a postrace interview with the website Flotrack. “That’s all I cared about in coming over here. … I thought I’d be stuck in the 10 at Beijing. I didn’t want to do that.”

This year, for the first time, Beach to Beacon is offering substantial prize money to the top five U.S. finishers as well as the traditional payouts to the top 10 runners overall.

True, 29, is one of the four former Maine resident winners who plan to run in the elite category. The others are Will Geoghegan of Brunswick, Riley Masters of Veazie and Ethan Shaw of Falmouth.

“This is going to be a tremendous day for running in the state of Maine,” said David Weatherbie, the former race president who remains on the Beach to Beacon board of directors and helps assemble the field. “There is a resurgence in American distance running, and four of these guys from Maine are playing a role in it.”

True set the Maine men’s course record of 29 minutes, 10 seconds in 2009. A graduate of Greely High and Dartmouth College, he covered the course in 27:49 last August to achieve the highest overall placing by any American man in the race’s 17-year history.

Before qualifying for his first world championship track team (he led the U.S. to a surprising silver medal in the 2013 cross country worlds), True won four major races and more than $60,000 in prize money this year. In March he won his third straight national 15K title at the Gate River Run in Jacksonville, Florida. In April he set an American record (13:22) at the BAA 5K in Boston. In May he outkicked a pair of Olympic medalists to become the first American man to win a Diamond League 5,000 track race and, also in New York, won the Healthy Kidney 10K against a strong field.

Like True, Geoghegan and Shaw are Dartmouth graduates. Geoghegan, 23, ran in the same 5,000 race in Belgium over the weekend with True and set a personal-best time of 13:17 to finish 15th. Shaw, 24, made his marathon debut last year at Twin Cities in Minnesota, where he finished 13th in 2:17:26. Masters, 25, ran at the University of Maine and the University of Oklahoma, and raced the 1,500 in Belgium as well as the 5,000 at the U.S. nationals.

“The fact these guys grew up here in Maine, they were all high school superstars and have gone on to stellar college careers and are now making a living running professionally,” Weatherbie said, “it’s a very proud moment for the race, very proud.”

Noting that several major U.S. road races – including the Falmouth race on Cape Cod that follows Beach to Beacon – offer prize money for top American finishers, Weatherbie said organizers “felt like at times we may lose one or two of the top Americans because they wanted to focus on Falmouth as an opportunity to earn additional money.”

Beach to Beacon now offers $5,000 to the first American man and woman, and rounds out the top five with $3,000 for second, $2,000 for third, $1,000 for fourth and $500 for fifth. Money for overall finishers stays the same, with $10,000 for the winners.

By contrast the Falmouth race offers $8,000 for the overall champions and $2,000 for the top American man and woman, and pays only three places to U.S. runners.

“It’s going to attract a stronger American field,” Weatherbie said.

Other top Americans expected are Eric Jenkins (a two-time NCAA champion at Oregon who hails from Portsmouth, New Hampshire), Christo Landry (American record holder for 25K) and Emily Sisson (Providence grad who set the NCAA indoor record at 5,000 meters).

Four former Beach to Beacon champions plan to run, including defending women’s winner Gemma Steel of Great Britain. Also: Kenyans Micah Kogo (2011, 2013), Stanley Biwott (2012) and Joyce Chepkirui (2013).