2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships: second rainbow jerseys for pump track winners

Košárková and Clerté win for second time

The latest two titles to be earned at the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Valais, Switzerland, were on the pump track in the city of Monthey, on Friday evening. Both the women’s and men’s winners claimed their second titles of UCI World Champion, and both had to beat incredibly tough Swiss riders on home soil to achieve it.

The women’s 2024 UCI World Champion Sabina Košárková retained her title after a thrilling battle with Switzerland’s Christa von Niederhäusern, the legend behind whom she won the silver medal in both 2022 and 2023.

“I knew this morning ‘I’ve done it before and I have to do it again’, and now I’ve done it!” exclaimed Czechia’s Košárková just before she was presented with the gold medal by UCI President, David Lappartient.

“To my family, I hope you can come with me next year, let’s see how it goes.”

Then France’s Eddy Clerté came to the final knowing he could secure his own unique double by repeating his 2021 winning form. But he would have to overcome a relentless Tristan Borel, spurred on by home support.

“You guys are incredible, I can’t believe it,” said 2025 UCI World Champion Clerté. “I’m so happy to win, and with Sabina as well, I saw her win and I got goosebumps, and I stayed focussed for it. And Tristan, what a performance, just getting faster each lap. It was an amazing day.”

Czech Košárková holds strong in front of home favourite

The 37 riders in qualifying were steadily cut down to 16, then eight. Košárková was fastest, followed by Von Niederhäusern (+0.055), 19-year-old Alina Beck (GER) and Nadine Aeberhard (SUI). Coming through in 8th was 2021 UCI World Champion Aiko Gommers (BEL) but going out was 2019 UCI World Champion Payton Ridenour (USA).

In the seven-minute free session of the following round, Gommers made an error on her second run, without enough time to go again, and Aeberhard went for a second run but fell 0.033 seconds off the time of Latvia’s Vineta Pētersone.

The fastest four women met in the semi-final. Would it come down to line choice? Košárková went low, Von Niederhäusern went high, and there was only one hundredth of a second between them. Beck rolled the dice, put in another run, but couldn’t improve and went into the small final with Pētersone who had conserved her energy. But the German still had enough in the tank to take her second bronze medal, after 2023.

In the final, Switzerland’s three-time UCI World Champion (2018, 2022 and 2023) Niederhäusern went first, to huge home crowd support, and recorded 22.444 seconds. But the Czech rider looked smooth and brought it home, just 0.02 seconds quicker.

Clerté’s final acceleration for the win

Of the 44 men, three former UCI World Champions did not make the top eight: Alec Bob (USA - 2023), Niels Bensink (NED - 2022) and Tommy Zula (USA - 2019).

Clerté and three-time Dutch Champion Jesse Elzenga, went through to the semi-final along with the Swiss pair of Sirio Grünig and 2019 silver medalist Tristan Borel. And when 23-year-old Borel put down the fastest time, that was a red rag to the Clerté bull, who went faster still by 0.03-seconds, putting them both into the final.

Racing for bronze, Grünig pushed to the limit, yet was still just outpaced by the Dutchman Elzenga.

In the final, four-time Swiss Champion Borel delivered his best time of the day: 20.1568 seconds, within one hundredth of a second of Clerté’s fastest time. And despite being down at the split, the Frenchman somehow went faster still – 20.023 seconds – to become the first ever two-time men’s UCI World Champion.

Clerté has already seen the absolute highs and lows of this young and growing sport – and now he’s right back on top.

“I almost died doing this three years ago,” announced Eddy Clerté, referring to his crash in the 2022 final in Santiago, Chile. “So I wanted to focus on BMX Racing, but I always save my passion for the pump track, and I believe it’s a real sport – and I can’t wait to see where it's gonna go!

“It was super hard. The crowd was with Tristan, and probably some other riders were with Tristan as well!

“I just wanna say to all the kids out there if you’re not winning early on in your career, it’s not a big deal, you can win later, and I’m the pure example of that.”