A host of reigning and former UCI World Champions for pump track are set to battle for the 2025 title in Valais, Switzerland, on Friday 5 September. Pump track will be the third medal competition of the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships (1-14 September) and will take place at the foot of the mountains, in Monthey. The UCI World Champions for enduro and E-enduro were crowned on 1 September, while the E-mountain bike cross country competitions will take place in Bellwald / Aletsch Arena on Thursday 4 September.
Pump Track is raced on a looped flow track designed with berms, rollers and whoops. Uniquely, the winners will earn the coveted rainbow jerseys by not pedalling. Instead, they propel themselves forward, generating speed by ‘pumping’ their body, using skill, strength and strategy, choosing lines for the best momentum, greatest speed and shortest route to the finish line.
Riders go head-to-head in an explosive knockout format where every hundredth of a second counts, round after round. After seeding for men and women on Thursday 4 September, the competition will start in earnest at 14h30 the following day with the 1/16finals through to the finals and the crowning of the 2025 UCI World Champions.
New Swiss track
It’s the second time the UCI Pump Track World Championships are hosted in Switzerland, after those in Oberried, Bern, in 2019. Velosolutions have created the tracks every year since then, priding themselves and all host communities for “turning every stop into a global celebration. Now, the story continues. We’re back in Switzerland, and Monthey is ready to take its place in pump track history.”
The track length is 278 metres, and the run times are expected to be under 22 seconds.
Some of the riders shared their impressions after first training sessions at the new track.
Return of UCI World Champions
The provisional entry lists for Monthey include 52 men and 42 women, representing a total of 21 countries, the highest number of nations ever at the UCI World Championships for pump track.
Among them, is every single reigning and former UCI World Champion since 2019 when Tommy Zula and Payton Ridenour made it a USA double. As part of his preparation, Zula took a trip back to Oberried where he claimed his rainbow jersey.
The next UCI Pump Track World Championships were held in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2021, when the momentum swung in favour of the European riders, with France’s Eddy Clerté and Belgium’s 17-year-old Aiko Gommers victorious. BMX Racing Olympian Gommers has recently been running pump track sessions in Roubaix, France, before making her way to Switzerland.
The 2022 UCI Pump Track World Championships were held at the Santa Fe Bike Park in Santiago, Chile, and in South America it was another European pair tasting success: Switzerland’s Christa von Niederhäusern and the Netherlands’ Niels Bensink. The beaten finalists that year – Alec Bob (USA) and teenage Sabina Košárková (Czechia) – went on to prove that silver medal status was not enough for them.
28-year-old Bensink recently put in some pump track practice in Switzerland, before reaching Monthey, saying “Wish I could ride here more often”.
In 2023, the UCI Pump Track World Championships were raced indoors for the first time, and saw Alec Bob upgrade his medal from silver to gold. Meanwhile, Von Niederhäusern became the first rider to retain a UCI World title for pump track, a speciality she’s championed since its embryonic days of competition.
Bob, one of 10 Americans on the Valais start list, ensured his qualification back in March.
After two years on the second step of the podium, Sabina Košárková’s persistence paid off when she was crowned UCI World Champion in 2024. The 2024 UCI Pump Track World Championships in Durban, South Africa, produced a first UCI World Champion for pump track from the Southern Hemisphere, the highly regarded gravity mountain bike athlete, Ryan Gilchrist. The Aussie is often on or near the podium in pump track events that he juggles with other specialities. He’s on the provisional entry list to try to retain his title, but a crash after a fast start to the E-Enduro competition earlier this week puts his participation in doubt.