USA Cycling has confirmed the 28 riders on the national team heading to Tabor, Czech Republic, for the 2024 UCI Cyclocross World Championships on February 3-4; U23 men's champion Jack Sprunger (Bear National Team) has withdrawn from the World Championships.
Four-time elite women's champion Clara Honsinger (S&M Racing) and two-time elite men's champion Eric Brunner (WTP Pivot Offroad) were joined by U23 women's winner Lizzie Gunsalas (CCB Racing), junior champion David Thompson (AG2R Citroen U19 Team) and Vida Lopez de San Roman (Bear National Team) to lead the roster.
Lopez de San Roman made history in December as the first American woman to win a junior cyclocross World Cup race, winning alone in Hulst on December 30. In the junior men's race, Thompson finished second in the first junior World Cup race of the year in Troyes, France, while Henry Couto (CompEdge Racing) earned his first European podium finish in Grand Prix Sven Nys. Thompson is ranked 3rd in the juniors in the UCI World CX rankings through mid-January, while Miles Mattern and Couto are 10th and 11th, respectively, in the men's race.
Three elite men and three elite women will be on Team USA. Curtis White (Steve Tilford Foundation) is the top American elite rider at 28th in the UCI CX standings, while WTP Pivot Offroad teammates Scott Funston and Brunner are 35th and 43rd, respectively. Honsinger is 37th in the elite women's standings and is joined by Steve Tilford Foundation Racing teammates Katie Kruse and Raylyn Nass.
White and Brunner have only scored UCI points in North American races this season. White won two C1 events to claim the USCX series title, while Brunner won the Pan American and US Championships. Funston won a bronze medal at the US Nationals in Louisville and competed in 10 events in Europe, finishing sixth in the C2 race in Gernel, France.
Honsinger's best finish at the world championships was a fourth-place finish in the elite women's race in Oostende in 2021. She has only competed in Europe four times since winning the U.S. National Crown, with three top-10 finishes this month in Belgium. The trip to the World Championships will be Nuss and Clouse's first cyclocross race abroad this season.
Andrew Strohmeyer, who won a silver medal in the elite men's category at this year's US Cyclocross Nationals, will compete in the U23 division at the World Championships. Three places above Brunner in the world rankings, Strohmeyer has competed in eight races in Europe this season and finished a strong 12th at the U23 World Cup in Troyes, France. Brunner has three teammates.
Gansalas and U23 Pan American Champion Lauren Zoner lead a group of six women under 23. Both just 20 years old, Zoerner has competed in eight races in Europe this season and Gunsalus in six, with the CCB rider finishing 15th in the C1 race in Coxsayde.
The last American rider on the podium at the UCI Cyclocross World Championships was Madigan Munroe, who finished third in the 2020 women's junior race in Dubendorf, Switzerland. The only American rider to win the rainbow stripe in cyclocross dates back to 1999, when Matt Kelly won the Team USA men's junior race in Poprad, Slovakia.
Because the sport of cyclocross is not an Olympic cycling discipline, USA Cycling not only funds the national team for the UCI Cyclocross World Championships, but also provides camps and development programs for athletes and MAD Funds for year-round support for the discipline to the sport.
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