2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships: Höll wins fourth consecutive title

Goldstone opens his Elite account

Austrian Valentina Höll pulled out a magnificent performance in Champéry, Switzerland, on Sunday 7 September to claim her fourth consecutive Women Elite downhill title of UCI World Champion.

Shortly afterwards, Canada’s Jackson Goldstone took his first Men Elite downhill UCI World title at the first attempt, putting almost 2 seconds into a class field that had been led by Germany’s emerging talent Henri Kiefer.

Sunday’s competitions came at the half-way point of the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike world Championships taking place from 1 to 14 September in Valais (Switzerland).

Women Elite: Höll shines when it counts the most

Sunday’s downhill finals heated up when double UCI World Champion Myriam Nicole (FRA) put injuries behind her and greenlit every sector to go more than 7 seconds clear of the riders before her. Athletes of the calibre of Norway’s Mille Johnset, three-time European Champion Monika Hrastnik (SLO), and the USA’s Anna Newkirk, back from a hand injury, couldn’t match the eight-time Elite UCI World Championships medallist.

The Swiss pair of 24-year-old Lisa Baumann and 2020 UCI World Champion Camille Balanche – racing her final UCI World Championships before retirement – went provisional 2nd and 3rd… but still no-one came within 2 seconds of 35-year-old Nicole.

Then when France’s 2021 silver medalist Marine Cabirou slotted into second behind her compatriot, only three riders stood between Nicole and her third UCI World title: last year’s bronze medalist Tahnée Seagrave (GBR), Canada’s Gracey Hemstreet, winner of three rounds of the 2025 UCI Downhill World Cup, and, the last to run, three-time UCI World Champion Valentina Höll.

Seagrave went fastest in the first two sectors but dropped 6 seconds on the bottom half of the course, finishing 7th. Hemstreet couldn’t quite match the Frenchwoman’s pace, ultimately taking fourth place.

Höll had not won a race since the 2024 UCI World Championships in Pal Arinsal, Andorra, where she put Nicole into 2nd place. The 24-year-old Austrian was 1.4 seconds up after the second split, and despite losing some pace further down, held on to win by 0.667 seconds.

Höll’s first top-level victory in 372 days was in the biggest race of all. She takes Austrian women’s third gold of the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships after Anna Spielmann (E-MTB cross-country) and Rosa Zierl (Junior downhill).

“[UCI] World Championships are always something special and it brings out the best in you,” said Höll.

“Definitely this year hasn’t been easy, I just couldn’t find my fire. Honestly, I didn’t expect it for this race, I didn’t feel the season is mine. I just tried to give my best, not think about any outcome. Today I just relied on my confidence and the reason why I started riding - to have fun - and this is something that I wanted to get back.”

Men Elite: Goldstone confirms UCI World Cup form

In the men’s final, Great Britain’s Ethan Craik laid down a mark to beat when he was the first rider to go faster than Jackson Goldstone’s qualification-winning time, averaging more than 50km/h. Then 2023 Junior UCI World Champion Henri Kiefer blitzed the 3-minute mark.

Former Elite UCI World Champions Aaron Gwin (USA), Charlie Hatton (GBR) and Danny Hart (GBR) couldn’t touch it. Into the top 10 riders, Ireland’s Ronan Dunne, fresh from UCI World Cup victory at Les Gets (France), went within 0.05 seconds, and Austria’s Andreas Kolb – who won the European Championships on the same Champéry track in 2024 – was running fastest but crashed.

Only the last three riders could stop 20-year-old Kiefer becoming Germany’s first ever downhill Men Elite UCI World Champion: 2025 UCI World Cup series leader Goldstone; reigning UCI World Champion Loris Vergier (FRA); and five-time UCI World Champion Loïc Bruni (FRA).

Twenty-one-year-old Goldstone put in a stunning run to go 1.946 seconds quicker than Kiefer’s mark. When Vergier couldn’t find the pace to retain his title, it came down to the two men at the top of the current UCI Downhill World Cup table: Goldstone versus Bruni.

But Bruni crashed, and the rainbow jersey was for Goldstone.

“That was probably some of my best work on a mountain bike. I struggled the first two days, then as soon as the quali run came I felt like it was on and I left everything out on track there,” said Goldstone, who dedicated his run to fellow Canadian downhiller Stevie Smith, who died after an enduro motorcycle accident in 2016.

“Coming across that grass section I felt like I was on a wild horse and just trying to hold on,” said the new UCI Word Champion.