USA cyclo-cross champion Eric Brunner soloed to victory to claim his fifth elite men’s Pan-American Cyclocross Championships title, dropping defending champion Andrew Strohmeyer with three laps to go in Washington, DC, on Saturday.
Last year, Strohmeyer took the win in a similar fashion when he pulled away from Brunner.
After winning the national title in December 2025, Brunner focused on road racing this year, over the summer, postponing his return to cyclo-cross until the weekend before Pan Ams, when he swept both UCI C2 races at Cycle-Smart Northampton Cyclocross.
Brunner, Strohmeyer and Dylan Zakrajsek, who all race for Competitive Edge Racing, pulled away from the field after one lap of racing. Behind them, newly crowned Canadian champion Tyler Clark and Americans Sam Brown and Ben Frederick led the chase.
After five laps of racing, the two had broken away, but they would not stay together for long. Brunner laid down the fastest lap of the day, clocking 6:36, to drop his rival and extend his advantage from six seconds with three laps to go to 19 seconds by the bell lap.
Strohmeyer crossed the line, 18 seconds behind for the silver medal. Over a minute after the winner, Zakrajsek claimed the bronze medal, to make it a US sweep of the medals. Sam Brown was fourth, and Clark, the only non-American rider in the 16-rider field, took fifth.
For the second year in a row, the Continental Championships were held on the historic grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, the site of President Lincoln’s Summer Cottage and a residential community for United States veterans since 1851.
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Lyne has been involved in professional cycling for more than 15 years in both news reporting and sports marketing. She founded Podium Insight in 2008, quickly becoming a trusted source for news of the North American professional cycling world. She was the first to successfully use social media to consistently provide timely and live race updates for all fans. She is proud to have covered men's and women's news equally during her tenure at the helm of the site. Her writing has appeared on Cyclingnews and other news sites.
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