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David Brower won the men’s 100-mile race of the 2023 Garmin Unbound Gravel presented by Craft in a sprint on Saturday and Tiffany Cromwell rode solo across the line for the elite women’s title.
Brower sprinted to the line in downtown Emporia, Kansas ahead of Elliot Phillips in second place, and Brian McCulloch in third place. Scott Funston finished fourth.
“It was absolute chaos at the start,” 19-year-old Brower told Cyclingnews at the finish. “I thought I was 30th out of there. then I was seventh or eighth out of the mud (mile 11) and we had a group of four or five that came together around mile 40.”
“We chased [Scott Funston] all day. We caught him at like mile 75. I was in the worst pain of my life, but I rolled it through. My legs are seizing up starting on the climb up to the college. All the way through the college, my legs were seizing. I barely sprinted and somehow nobody came around me.”
Tiffany Cromwell crossed the line with a time of 6:13:54, a little more than 23 minutes behind Brower.
“Yeah I was going great until about mile 12, when we had that mud. I was definitely not ready for that. There was definitely moments where I was hating life because you know you just couldn’t get your bike moving, you couldn’t even roll, and you had to carry it because of all the mud,” Cromwell said.
“But then, yeah, I just played let’s-go-hard game and because I had no idea where it was compared to the other women. I just kept fighting. Luckily, I had some good people to ride with, they kept the pace going.”
How it unfolded
The 100-mile event for Garmin Unbound Gravel presented by Craft Sportswear, based in Emporia, Kansas, was introduced in 2019. In the fourth edition, the route followed much of the same relentless climbing as the signature 200-mile event, with just one pass of Texaco Hill in a southbound loop before heading back for the finish.
At the first checkpoint at mile 21, US cyclocross star Scott Funston rode at the front of the 449-rider field, joined by compatriot Mark Currie and Briton Elliot Phillips.
Riley Swickard, of nearby Overland Park, Kansas, held a solo lead for the women, 3 minutes ahead of Coloradoan Keira Bond. Women’s WorldTour rider Tiffany Cromwell, of Team…
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