Cycling | South African Alan Hatherly wins 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships

South African Alan Hatherly successfully defended his rainbow jersey of Men Elite cross-country Olympic (XCO) UCI World Champion on the final day of the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships taking place in Valais, Switzerland (1-14 September).

South African Alan Hatherly successfully defends his title Pic: UCI

Alan Hatherly wins Men Elite rainbow jersey for the Rainbow Nation

France’s Victor Koretzky and USA’s Christopher Blevins – gold and silver medallists respectively in Tuesday’s cross-country short track (XCC) – went straight to the front, along with Hatherly, Chile’s Martín Vidaurre, Swiss riders Fabio Püntener, Luca Schätti and Mathias Flückiger, and the Italians Luca Braidot and Mathis Azzaro.

Mathieu Van der Poel – aiming to add a title of UCI World Champion for mountain bike to those of road, cyclo-cross and gravel – started in 33rd position and pushed into 7th by the start of the 2nd of 9 laps.

On lap 3, 2024 UCI World Champion Hatherly passed Koretzky who led a group of seven: Braidot and his fellow Italian Simone Avondetto rubbed shoulders with Schätti and Flückiger, with Van der Poel and Blevins in contact.

Van der Poel soon drifted back behind Denmark’s Simon Andreassen, and Blevins dropped out of the top ten. Flückiger had been circulating on his own in second before being drawn back into a group of five with Schätti, Koretzky and the two Italians – a minute behind the metronomic South African, who clocked sub-10 minutes for each of the first six laps.

With two laps remaining, Andreassen – Junior XCO UCI World Champion in 2014 and 2015 and UCI Mountain Bike Marathon (XCM) World Champion in 2024 – joined the chasers to form a group of six… but Hatherly was already 90 seconds clear.

Flückiger forced the pace, with 2022 Under 23 UCI World Champion Avondetto, then European Champion Schätti clawing back to him. Avondetto attacked to claim silver, as Koretzky caught the Swiss duo and timed his sprint perfectly to take bronze. Hatherly hit his season’s peak form brilliantly, to retain the title in 1:30:30, with Avondetto +0:48 and Koretzky +0:51.

Four Swiss riders finished in the top 10 before 10-time UCI World Champion Nino Schurter rolled in to a champagne reception, then presented the winners’ medals.

A delighted Hatherly reacted: “I think I just had one of those days. It would be pretty hard for me to repeat a performance like that. All the stars aligned. It’s been really tough to combine both [road and mountain bike], but defending this [UCI] World title was a big goal from the beginning of the season. It was really difficult to balance the two but the last month I just went full mountain bike focus.”