17: the number of World titles awarded in 2018 across the different formats; cross-country Olympic (XCO) individual 6, XCO team relay 1, DownhilI 4, cross-country Marathon 2, four-cross 2, cross-country Eliminator 2.
55 was the record number of nations represented at the 2018 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships presented by Mercedes-Benz in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. 15 nations won a medal.
9.983 seconds was the staggering winning margin for Great Britain’s Rachel Atherton as she rode to her fifth Downhill world title in Switzerland.
On the other hand, Elite Men’s UCI World Champion Loic Bruni (FRA) won his title by a whisker: completing the course just 0.213 seconds faster than silver medallist Martin Maes (Belgium). The first four men finished within the same second.
46,000,000: the record cumulative television audience for the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships presented by Mercedes-Benz in 2018.
7 is the number of XCO World titles amassed by Switzerland’s Nino Schurter, his latest being this year. The Olympic Champion collected his 2018 rainbow jersey “at home” in Lenzerheide after those won in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
1: Henrique Avancini became the first Brazilian rider in history to claim a mountain bike world title when he beat Austria’s Daniel Geismayr to the line by a mere 2 seconds after more than five hours of racing at the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships in Tre Cime di Lavaredo, in the Italian Dolomites.
115 points separated the women’s winner of the UCI MTB Eliminator World Cup powered by citymountainbike.com Ingrid Bøe Jacobsen (Norway) and Ella Holmegard (Sweden). After seven rounds the Norwegian had clocked up 265 points to Holmegard’s 150. The difference in the Men’s competition was nearly as big: 263 for the Netherlands’ Jeroen van Eck to 169 for Germany’s Simon Gegenheimer.
2 first-time UCI World Champions were crowned at the 2018 UCI Four-cross World Championships presented by Mercedes-Benz in Val di Sole, Italy: Quentin Derbier of France and Romana Labounkova of the Czech Republic.
577 mountain bike events were registered on the UCI International Calendar in 2018.
118 UCI MTB Teams from 31 countries were registered with the UCI for the 2018 season.
22 years after her first UCI World Cup win, Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesja announced her retirement at the end of 2018. During her outstanding career, the Norwegian has clocked up 1 Olympic title, 6 XCM World titles, 4 XCO World titles, 6 XCO European titles, 13 XCO National titles and 30 UCI World Cup wins.
5-time XCO UCI World Champion (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2014) and double Olympic Champion (2004, 2008) Julien Absalon also announced his retirement this year. The 37-year-old Frenchman will now work full time as team manager for his own team, Absolute Absalon.