The 2025 UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships kicked off on Friday 7 November, in Göppingen, Germany. A vibrant opening ceremony saw 4,000 spectators fill the Göppingen arena to cheer on 150 athletes from 24 nations.
For artistic cycling, medals were awarded in ACT 4, while athletes in the Single Men and Pair Open competitions went through qualification. The evening also featured the start of the cycle-ball tournament.
ACT 4: Swiss quartet crown career with a third straight title
In their farewell performance, Switzerland’s Stefanie Haas, Valerie Unternährer, Selina Niedermann, and Sarah Manser claimed a third consecutive UCI world title, a perfect ending to their glorious careers.
After a shaky qualification round left them in second place behind Germany, the Swiss team produced a near-flawless routine in the final to score 239.54 points. The German team, silver medalists in 2024 and UCI World Champions in 2022, composed of Milena Schwarz, Annika Rosenbach, Stella Rosenbach and Tijem Karatas, scored 237.75 points to again take silver medal.
A tense battle for bronze saw Hong Kong (So Cheuk Lam, Wong Cheuk Sze, Ho Dong Qing, and Lam Cheuk Yu) edge out France (Justine Martz, Alice Rieb, Valentine Rieb, and Thérèse Rietsch) after the French quartet suffered several falls, ending with 84.56 points to Hong Kong’s 86.51.
Gracefulness on bikes! 🤩
— UCI (@UCI_cycling) November 7, 2025
Team Switzerland 🇨🇭 delivered a superb performance to bring the UCI rainbow stripes home in the Act 4 Artistic Cycling at the 2025 UCI Indoor Cycling Worlds. 🌈#Göppingen2025 is well and truly in full swing! 🔥
📷 Tom Weller pic.twitter.com/WsVoq7YREB
Single Men: Philipp-Thies Rapp leads the field
Favourite Philipp-Thies Rapp (Tailfingen/GER), two-time silver medallist, topped the Single Men qualifications with 206.23 points, and enters the final as the clear favourite.
In his first Elite UCI World Championships, Linus Weber (Kirchdorf/GER) also made a strong impression despite a fall during the “Maute jump”. With bonus points from a six-fold twist jump, he finished on 188.48 points to qualify for the final. The remaining places went to Yat Nam Chan (HKG) with 165.01 points and Czaba Varga (HUN) with 160.90 points, while Austria’s Marcel Schnetzer made a noteworthy comeback, securing fifth place with 155.27 points.
Pair Open: Germany dominates qualifications
The reigning UCI World Champions Lea-Victoria Styber and Nico Rödiger (GER) dazzled the audience with multiple handlebar turns and impressive transitions, scoring a new UCI World Championships personal best of 161.47 points to lead the Pair Open qualifications. Fellow Germans, last year's UCI World Championships silver medallists Niklas Kreuzmann and Celine Stapf, finished second with 132.58 points.
Brothers Tsz Hin Jeff Lim and Tsz Leung Ron Lim competing for Hong Kong placed third with 130 points, while their compatriots Chun Wai Hui and Chun Yin Hui secured the last final spot with 114.46 points, despite a crash attempting a double Maute jump, which cost them ten points.
Cycle-ball Elite League
The arena was deafeningly loud at the first cycle-ball games of the new Elite League.
Defending champions Bernd Mlady and Raphael Kopp (GER) came from behind to beat France (Quentin and Mathias Seyfried) 6–1.
In Group B, Switzerland’s Fröhlich brothers, Timon and Yannick, narrowly defeated Austria’s Patrick Schnetzer and Stefan Feurstein 7–6 in a thrilling duel between last year’s top contenders. In the other duels, Hungary beat Japan 5–1, and Czechia outperformed Slovakia 6–1.
In the Women’s event, UCI World Champions Danielle Holzer and Judith Wolf (GER) opened with a 3–1 win over Japan (Sayaka Tokuhiro/ Nana Yamashita), while Switzerland’s Sava Baumann and Chiara Dotoli dominated Czechia (Blanka Adamova/ Veronika Kripnerova) to win 5–0.