First lieutenants Christopher Barrett and Bryce Sullenger, with the 75th Ranger Regiment, complete the final event of the Best Sapper Competition, on Thursday, April 23, 2026, at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. Their victory marked the second consecutive win in the competition for the elite 75th Ranger Regiment. (Jesse Gonzales/U.S. Army)
First lieutenants Christopher Barrett and Bryce Sullenger made some costly mistakes early in the Army’s Best Sapper Competition at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., this week, but they bore down and dominated the final events in the grueling combat engineering contest.
“We knew that the competition was close … after having made some mistakes during the day Wednesday,” said Barrett, an engineering officer with the 75th Ranger Regiment’s 2nd Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. “We had some time before the night ruck march, and that’s when me and Bryce were just talking to each other, trusted our training, and went out there and … go and crush that ruck march.”
They never looked back. The duo completed the 18-plus mile march under heavy weight through hilly terrain in just over three hours, propelling them to win the Best Sapper title. Their victory marked the second consecutive win in the competition for the elite 75th Ranger Regiment.
“It’s a big deal for us to come here and win,” Barrett said Friday. “A lot is expected of us in the 75th Ranger Regiment, and we’re grateful for the opportunity … to represent them and come here and show the kind of training … [and] the kind of mentality we have and push through these four days and win.”
The 2026 Best Sapper Competition, the 19th since it started in 2005, featured 42 two-man teams of Sapper School graduates in a grueling four-day test of their combat engineering skills. Competition officials describe the event as an effort to not only crown the Best Sapper team but to “challenge and test the service members’ knowledge, physical prowess and mental fortitude.”
Throughout the competition, soldiers cover dozens of miles of terrain, demonstrate weapons skills, navigate obstacle courses and conduct physical fitness and strength assessments. They run, swim, hike and march, and they face challenging engineering problems, breach obstacles and show their abilities to use explosives on the battlefield, officials said.
Col. Timothy Hudson, the commandant of the U.S. Army Engineering School at Fort Leonard Wood, said the competitors represent the “very best of the best” in the Army sapper community.
“This year was extraordinarily competitive,” Hudson said Friday. “People came prepared. They trained hard, they put the hard, hard work in before, and it was a great competition.”
First lieutenants Christopher Barrett and Bryce Sullenger participate in the night land navigation portion of the Best Sapper Competition on Monday, April 20, 2026, at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. (Michael Schmitz/U.S. Army)
Barrett and Sullenger spent recent months training for the competition alongside the Ranger Regiment’s three Best Ranger Competition duos, which placed first, second and third earlier this month in that three-day test of Ranger and infantry skills at Fort Benning, Ga.
That training gave them the kind of endurance necessary to survive the Best Sapper competition on little rest and sustenance, said Sullenger, an infantry officer who will reclassify as an engineering officer when he is promoted to captain.
So when the pair made a crucial mistake on Wednesday and failed to complete the full length of a swim, they knew they still had the mental and physical ability to put it behind them and focus on what they needed to do to come together as teammates and win, he said.
“We were able to gel so well because of the hardships we went through during that training,” said Sullenger, who is assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment Headquarters at Fort Benning. “Competing against [Best Ranger Competition teams] during our entire training period put us through those hardships and physical challenges that let us know we could push through any hardships during the competition.”
Last year, Sullenger competed in the Best Ranger Competition. He said it was not easy to compare the two contests because while they were both physically demanding, they tested entirely different skill sets. He was also not sure if that experience helped him and Barrett win Best Sapper.
More than anything else, Barrett said, the stiff competition at this year’s Best Sapper pulled the best out of the duo.
“It was a very strong field this year,” he said. “I think having the other teams them pushing us — teams stronger in some of the fields than we are … required us to push harder, to lean on our strengths, and then to continue to push hard through all phases of competition.”
