The UCI Cross-country Short Track (XCC) World Cup began with a bang in Araxá, Minas Gerais (Brazil), as Christopher Blevins (Specialized Factory Racing) and Evie Richards (Trek Factory Racing - Pirelli) produced triumphant explosive moves on the final laps of two thrilling Men’s and Women’s Elite curtain raisers.

Richards kept her powder dry until the end of the Women’s Elite race but followed all the potential winning moves with apparent ease before dropping her own bombshell on the final climb, swinging wide into the climb to carry maximum speed into the ascent and blow Alessandra Keller (Thömus Maxon) and Nicole Koller (Ghost Factory Racing) off her back wheel.

Richards never relinquished the slender lead she carried over the summit to Decathlon Ford Racing Team’s Samara Maxwell - the only rider to live with the initial acceleration - as the UCI XCC World Champion banished the demons of the concussion she suffered in Araxá last season.

The Men’s Elite contest didn’t feature the same high-octane racing from start to finish but produced an even more exciting finale with two teammates in a league of their own on a hair-raising last circuit, Blevins and Victor Koretzky throwing everything at each other as third-placed Mathis Azzaro (Origine Racing Division) could only watch.

And as the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series returned for 2025 on the iconic red clay of Araxá, Sondre Rokke and Isabella Holmgren got their U23 campaigns off to the perfect start.

RICHARDS COMBINES AND BRAWN TO DOUBLE UP IN ARAXÁ

It’s no surprise Evie Richards is sporting those rainbow bands if she can win like this in races she’s not even targeting. With plenty of riders lining up in new colours at the start of the next Olympic cycle, Jolanda Neff, Jenny Rissveds and Loana Lecomte might’ve been too keen to impress for Cannondale Factory Racing, Canyon CLLCTV XCO and BMC Factory Racing respectively as they pushed the pace early in a lead group that also included Richards and Swiss duo Keller and Sina Frei (Specialized Factory Racing).

That sextet initially looked like the riders who would contest the win as the first-day fervour caused a crash on the maiden feature as Ronja Eibl found strife on the bridge for Origine Racing Division. However, the tempo relented in the second quarter as first Maxwell bridged across, then the lead group ballooned to 15 after entering the penultimate lap after Keller had reduced it to just Richards and Frei at one stage.

Having bided her time through five laps, Maxwell stunned the pack by making the decisive selection of the race on the climb of the sixth circuit with only Richards, Keller and Koller able to follow the explosion uphill - the Brit once again showing her strength without putting her nose in the wind.

That all changed as the lead quartet took the bell though, as Richards left the Swiss pair in the dust up the final climb and opened up a bike length, then two to Maxwell, that the Kiwi just couldn’t close, both riders celebrating across the line.

“I’m super happy, this wasn’t a target race for me,” Richards said, having also admitted she felt low on confidence entering the weekend.

“I wasn’t very confident coming into it, but I like to win so I was really focused. This is what I love doing so I just give it everything and see where I come. I’m just trying to be a bit smarter tactically, the first race of the year it’s more like sus everyone else out and ride my own race. I couldn’t have attacked if I didn’t have the legs, so it was just on my feelings really.”

SPECIALIZED DOUBLE UP IN MEN’S ELITE 1-2

Same race, different result. Victor Koretzky was superior last season in Araxá when the Specialized pair juked it out, but 12 months later Blevins crossed the line with his arms aloft for his first XCC triumph since 2022.

Blevins pushed the tempo alongside Simon Andreassen in the Dane’s first race for Orbea Fox Factory Team, yet try as they might, neither rider could force a decisive split.

With Charlie Aldridge and Mathias Fluckinger also present and correct at the front for Cannondale Factory Racing, gaps of a few bike lengths failed to convert to anything more and 30 riders were in the lead group entering the penultimate lap, where a Koretzky mistake finally broke the stalemate.

The UCI XCC World Champion unclipped as he turned to summit and Blevins immediately dropped the hammer in response - pulling Azzaro, Andreassen and Jordan Sarrou (BMC Factory Racing) with him while the beleaguered Kortezky took the bell in seventh. Although he did recover to briefly lead on the road run-in, Blevins smelled blood and attacked again on the climb to whittle it down to a two-horse race as Koretzky regained ground on the rock section.

Blevins survived elbow-elbow contact through the flat corners and had more in the tank for the home straight after Koretzky’s lung-busting effort, Azzaro the only other rider in view as the American crossed the line.

“Victor’s a champion, I love having him as a teammate,” Blevins said. “It’s one of the best feelings in the world when you’re going for that last lap and you’re about to battle with a teammate that you live this with.

“I was feeling really good on that kick and then the jumps as well, so I wanted to lead there and try to old it off which is a hard thing to do with Victor behind you.

“UCI World Cup Short Tracks are such a fight for position the whole time, I made an effort to be more intentional, be more of a fighter and don’t give up positions. This time I spent more time in the wind than I usually do but that paid off for me.”

Victor Koretzky has the consolation of a front-row start in tomorrow’s UCI Cross-country Olympic (XCO) World Cup race as he chases that elusive first UCI World Cup overall win in the discipline, and added: “At two laps to go I did a mistake on the hill and it was the moment Chris [Blevins] decided to attack so I lost a few seconds and places. I managed to close the gap on the last lap, for me it was not the last lap full gas but the last one and a half so at the end I was completely empty.

“I didn’t want to do any mistakes on the few last corners so we just keep the position, it’s a win for Specialized Factory Racing team and that’s the most important.”

LAST LAP PROVES DIVISIVE IN U23 RACES

With reigning U23 UCI XCC overall winners Riley Amos and Kira Böhm moving up to the elite ranks, it was anyone’s guess who’d come out on top in the first races of the weekend, two cagey affairs where the margin of victory was in single digits.

Isabella Holmgren was one of the main animators in the Women U23 alongside compatriot Ella MacPhee (Wilier-Vittoria Factory Team) after they finished fifth and ninth last season. It took until the final quarter of the race for the pack to splinter, the Canadian duo escaping with Valentina Corvi (Canyon CLLCTV XCO), Katharina Sadnik (KTM Factory MTB Team) and Ella MacLean-Howell (CUBE Factory Racing), and initially LIV Factory Racing’s Tyler Jacobs before the South African faded.

Holmgren wasn’t done there though, kicking again on the final lap to open a four-second gap across the line while Sadnik outsprinted MacLean-Howell to take second place.

Holmgren is balancing road and mountain bike commitments this season so wrote off a tilt at the overall charge, but the Canadian said her quest for as many headline results as possible got off to the perfect start:

“It’s my first race of the season so I was really nervous obviously, don’t know where the fitness is at and everything. I just tried to go in, see how the race played out and make my strategy because you don’t know how anyone else is going, and yeah just raced hard.”

The men’s U23 race was an even tighter affair, with a lead pack of 15 riders fighting out the finale. Norwegians Sondre Rokke and Martin Farstadvoll were among those setting a punishing pace in the sapping conditions.

Farstadvoll fell out of contention on the final lap as Lexware Mountainbike team’s Paul Schehl made the initial dig, creating separation but not enough to survive Rokke’s ferocious attack on the climb.

He finished almost two minutes down on Amos last season yet proved the man to beat in the 2025 season opener, holding onto his lead ahead of the final stampede, as Brayden Johnson and Wilier-Vittora Factory Team’s Heby Gustav won the battle for the remainder of the top three.

Rokke called his victory “unexpected” but hopes it can provide the springboard to an overall challenge in his final year of U23, adding: “Super hard from the start, then just the battle for position into the climb every lap. I felt quite good on the downhill, could just cruise a bit down and take the gaps again. I was a bit lucky into the last climb and just pushed hard, tried to get some metres over the top and held it to the finish line.”

After the UCI XCC World Cup got the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series to a thrilling start, the action keeps on coming from Brazil as riders return tomorrow for the UCI XCO World Cup curtain-raiser in Araxá.