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Cycling News

Sport

Jackie Tyson

Honsinger, White, Brunner lead US charge for elite medals at Cyclocross Worlds

David Thompson United States Worlds (Event) Team USA U23 UCI Europe USA Cycling World Cup

Team USA at cyclocross competitions is supported by the MudFund.

USA Cycling confirmed 28 athletes on the national team headed to Tábor, Czech Republic for the 2024 UCI Cyclocross World Championships, taking place February 3-4. Five recently-crowned national champions are on the team, with U23 men’s winner Jack Spranger (Bear National Team) declined to participate at Worlds.

Four-time elite women’s champion Clara Honsinger (S&M Racing) and two-time elite men’s champion Eric Brunner (WTP Pivot Off Road) will headline the roster along with U23 women’s winner Lizzy Gunsalus (CCB Racing) and junior champions David Thompson (AG2R Citroën U19 Team) and Vida Lopez de San Roman (Bear National Team).

Lopez de San Roman made history in December as the first US woman to win a junior cyclocross World Cup race, taking a solo victory in Hulst on December 30. On the junior men’s side, Thompson finished second at the first Junior World Cup of the year in Troyes, France while Henry Coote (Comp Edge Racing) claimed his first European podium at the Grand Prix Sven Nys. Thompson is the third-best junior rider in the UCI world CX rankings through mid-January, with Miles Mattern 10th and Coote 11th on the men’s side.

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Three elite men and three elite women will be part of Team USA. Curtis White (Steve Tilford Foundation) is the top US elite rider in the UCI CX rankings, placed 28th. WTP Pivot Off Road teammates Scott Funston and Brunner are ranked 35th and 43rd, respectively. Honsinger is ranked 37th among elite women, while she'll be joined by Steve Tilford Foundation Racing teammates Katie Clouse and Raylyn Nuss.

Both White and Brunner have only accumulated UCI points from racing in North America this season, White winning a pair of C1 events en route to securing the USCX series title, and Brunner winning the Pan-American and US championships. Funston wrapped 10 events in Europe around his bronze-medal finish at US nationals in Louisville, his best finish sixth at a C2 race in Gernelle, France.

Honsinger had her best finish at Worlds in 2021, when she finished fourth in the elite women’s race at Oostende. She has only four starts in Europe since winning the US national crown, with three top 10s this month in Belgium. The trip to Worlds will be the first cyclocross race overseas for Nuss and Clouse this season.

Andrew Strohmeyer, who earned a silver medal in the elite men’s category at US Cyclocross Nationals this year, will compete in the U23 division at Worlds. He is ranked three spots higher than Brunner in the world standings, having eight races under his belt in Europe this season with his best results 12th in the U23 World Cup race at Troyes, France. He will have three other teammates to support his efforts.

Gunsalus and U23 Pan-American champion Lauren Zoerner lead a group of six women in the under-23 division. Both at just 20 years of age, Zoerner has eight starts in Europe this season while Gunsalus has six, with the CCB rider scoring 15th at the C1 race in Koksijde.

The last US rider to finish on the podium at UCI Cyclocross World Championships was Madigan Munro in 2020, earning third in the women’s junior race at Dübendorf, Switzerland. The only US rider to have won the rainbow stripes in cyclocross dates back to 1999, when Matt Kelly won the men’s junior race for Team USA in Poprad, Slovakia.

As the sport of cyclocross is not a cycling discipline that is part of the Olympic Games, USA Cycling uses the MudFund for year-round support for the discipline, making camps and development programs available to athletes as well as all funding for the national team at UCI Cyclocross World Championships.