The team relay event kicked off the 2024 Cyclocross World Championships in Tabor, Czech Republic today. The course conditions were unpredictable with an icy frozen base, then a thin layer of slick mud on top. It left the riders on their toes while they tried to put down their fastest lap of the weekend.
At the World championships, countries can nominate a Team Relay squad consisting of a rider from each category: Junior, U23, and Elite. Team USA consisted of: Scott Funston (Boulder, Colo.), Andrew Strohmeyer (Mount Airy, Md.; CXHairs Devo), Clara Honsinger (Portland, Ore.; S&M Racing), Vida Lopez de San Roman (Sebastopol, Calif.; Bear National Team), Lauren Zoerner (Highlands Ranch, Colo.; Groove Off Road Racing Team), and David Thompson (New Canaan, Conn.; AG2R Citroën U19 Team).
Funston was the first rider from Team USA to take on the course. He managed to ride through most of the pack. He went from seventh up to third. After a few small mistakes, he was in fifth place, and handed it off to Strohmeyer. He held on to fifth place, then it was off to Honsinger who worked her way up to third position exchanging with Lopez de San Roman. She was battling for second place, but ultimately rode into the exchange zone in third position. Then it was off to Zoerner who crashed at the beginning of the lap, pushing Team USA back. It was challenging to recover from that with one lap to go, but Thompson gave it his all. He was eager to keep pushing riding in seventh position but ended up crashing as well. This ultimately solidified Team USA’s position of seventh. It’s all or nothing in the Team Relay and the Unites States put up a fight.
“I think it went well,” said coach Grant Holicky. “The individual riders had a chance to see what they wanted to do on course and when they get to their main races, they have a good opportunity to put that into practice again. We had a little bit of bad luck out there, but that’s just the nature of the course, and how it’s going to go sometimes. The riders had a lot of fun, and we had a lot of fun cheering them on.”
