AUBURN – Dara Reimers is ready to rise to the occasion when she competes for a spot on the team that will represent the United States in next year’s baking Olympics in Paris.

Reimers, an artisan baker who lives in Auburn, will compete in San Francisco on Sunday for a spot on the team going to the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, an international baking competition that is held every three years and is sometimes called the Olympics of Baking.

Reimers, 47, is as much an artist as she is a baker. In competing for a spot on the Bread Bakers Guild of America team, she’ll create an elaborate bread sculpture with flowers, trees, thunderbolts, snowflakes and dew drop-shaped pieces representing the seasons.

At Sunday’s tryout, each baker will have eight hours to make their creations from scratch. They’ll share an oven and be watched over by five judges.

“Our cooperation and professionalism will be part of the judging,” Reimers said. “I expect it to be quite intense. It’s going to take a lot of focus.”

Reimers, who moved to Maine four years ago from Vancouver, British Columbia, is an accountant by day who hopes to someday open a bakery of her own.

To get to the finals, she entered a regional competition in artistic design last October in Rhode Island. Other regionals were held in Arizona and Illinois.

Now she’ll compete against the other regional winners for the spot on the U.S. team in the artisan bread category. The other two categories to be filled are viennoiserie, and baguette and specialty breads.

The winners will represent the United States against 11 other countries in the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie from March 30 to April 1, 2008. The American team is the reigning champ.

When Reimers travels to San Francisco on Wednesday, she’ll bring her knife, pizza cutter, cookie cutters, flours, spices for colors, gloves and other tools.