Smyth and Brown Compete at World Cross

Team USA Minnesota's Patrick Smyth and Emily Brown closed out a successful cross country season at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland on Sunday.

Smyth was the first American finisher in the Senior Men's event. He ran 34:51 over the 12k course and finished in 36th place. Smyth led the U.S. squad to a ninth place finish.

Smyth was competing at World Cross for the first time and came away with some memories and more fuel for the fire. "I'm happy with my race, but not ecstatic. For my first world cross country championships, I more than held my own. I hope to be back here next year. I knew the start was going to be crazy, but not be real conservative, so I wanted to get a good spot. I didn't really move up a lot. This race will give me confidence going into the season."

Brown was a member of the bronze medal winning U.S. squad in the senior women 8k race. Competing in her second World Cross Country meet, Brown finished 41st in 26:53. The team bronze medal was the first for the U.S. in the senior women's event since 2003. The Americans finished behind only Kenya and Ethiopia who combined for individual places one through nine.

Emily Brown has competed this year with a recently diagnosed asthma condition and was able to keep her race in perspective. "Today went a lot better than the NACAC meet a few weeks ago. You always want to be a scoring member of the US team, but you look at the starting line at your teammates, and you realize that not only are you on the line with the best in the country, but some of the best in the world. We knew who we were going against in the team race, and we knew that the people who weren't going to score needed to stay as high up as possible."

Read the Team USA Minnesota media release HERE.