U.S. Riders Compete at 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships
Saturday brought the Under-23 Men and Elite Women Cross-Country Olympic races to the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. The sun was out and the track had totally dried out making it a fast and dusty race.
Elite Women
six American women lined up in Crans-Montana for seven grueling laps on one of the toughest tracks of the world Championships: Savilia Blunk (Inverness,Calif.; decathlon Ford Racing Team), Haley Batten (Park City, Utah; Specialized factory Racing), Gwendalyn Gibson (Ramona, Calif.; Trek Factory Racing),Kate courtney (Kentfield,Calif.; she Send Racing), Kelsey Urban (Kentfield, Calif.; KMC Ridley MTB Racing Team),and Madigan Munro (Boulder,Colo.; Trek Factory Racing).
A bottleneck in the opening woods set the U.S. riders back, but they battled through. Blunk, caught in the chaos and sitting 22nd at the first split, steadily clawed her way forward.by the fifth lap she was locked in a battle for fifth with reigning World Champion Puck Pieterse (NED). On the final lap, Blunk dug deep, putting 15 seconds into the Dutch rider to claim an notable fifth place.
Just behind, Batten settled into a chase group of four and powered to the front on the finishing straight, crossing the line in 12th. Gibson, Courtney, and Urban stayed composed inside the top 20, riding strong and finishing in succession.
Munro rode one of her best races yet until a flat derailed her momentum in the same section where a U.S. junior had suffered earlier in the week.She handled it calmly,made a speedy wheel change in the tech zone,and fought her way back through the field to finish 27th in her first Elite World Championships.
after the race, Blunk said, “I worked my way back up to fifth after kind of a nightmare start.There’s a bridge right after the start/finish where I had to dab, and I lost a ton of places. From there, I just focused on fighting my way back to the front, slowly picking people off. I think I went from 15th, to 12th, to 8th, and then finished 5th. It feels a little bitter
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