The 2025 UCI Mountain Bike Eliminator World Cup powered by citymountainbike.com gets underway in Dushanbe, Tajikistan on April 13, when a round of the series will be hosted by the central Asian country for the first time.
Last year’s edition of the UCI Mountain Bike Eliminator World Cup powered by citymountainbike.com was notable both for the performances of emerging young riders and the diversity of those who made it onto the podiums. Indeed, there were no fewer than eight different winners across the six rounds: Ede-Károly Molnár (ROU), Lorenzo Serres (FRA), Lochlan Brown (NZL), Edvin Lindh (SWE) and Theo Hauser (AUT) in the Men's race; and Marion Fromberger (GER), Gaia Tormena (ITA) and Didi de Vries (NED) in the Women's. Alongside these household names, there were also several new faces at this level on the podium, such as Jakob Klemenčič (SLO), Marta Cano (ESP), Line Mygdam (DEN), Vipavee Deekaballes (THA) and the Brazilian duo Luiz Cocuzzi and Iara Caetano.
In the Women's section, Italy's Gaia Tormena, 22, won the UCI World Cup for the fifth time, with a total of 440 points, finishing ahead of the Netherlands' Didi de Vries, 27 (371 points) and France's Madison Boissiere, 20 (329 points).
Sweden's Edvin Lindh, 24, emphatically won the men's competition with 496 points, while Frenchman Lorenzo Serres, 26, came second (403 points) and Austria’s Theo Hauser, 21, third (376 points).
The average age of those six athletes – who represented five different nations – was just over 23, which bodes well for the competitiveness and appeal of this growing specialty in the coming years.
Eight rounds on the calendar for 2025
The 2025 edition of the UCI Mountain Bike Eliminator World Cup powered by citymountainbike.com will be the most global to date, with events taking riders across Europe, South America and Asia.
The season starts on 13 April in the Tajikistani capital Dushanbe. The first of three new host cities in this year’s series, Dushanbe will feature a spectacular 530m urban track at the Ismail Samani square in the city centre.
On 1 June, the action moves to the well-known European venue of Leuven, Belgium, where Theo Hauser and reigning UCI World Champion Gaia Tormena won last year on its lightning-fast course.
Shortly after that is the UCI Mountain Bike Eliminator World Championships, which will take place this year on 22 June in Sakarya (Turkey), before the UCI World Cup resumes in Aalen, Germany, on 12 July, another venue that has previously featured on the UCI Mountain Bike Eliminator calendar and hosted the UCI World Championships in the specialty in 2024.
Less than two months’ after staging the UCI MTB Eliminator World Championships (XCE), Sakarya will welcome back the world's finest for the next UCI World Cup round on 10 August, this time on a brand-new city track.
The action then moves to Brazil where, a week later on August 17, the series continues in São Paulo. The city made a successful return to the UCI World Cup calendar last season after a six-year absence and will challenge riders in 2025 with a mix of urban and natural obstacles.
The second addition to the 2025 calendar is Athens, Greece. History and XCE will merge in front of the Panathenaic Stadium, where the first modern Olympic Games were staged in 1896.
The season’s final event on European soil will take place on 11 October in Barcelona, Spain. Located in Parc Montjuïc, it is one of the oldest venues in XCE, with its diagonal stone stairs promising high-speed descents.
The season’s 8th and final round will be in Chennai (Madras), India, on 19 October, the first time a UCI World Cup XCE event has been held there since 2022, when Felix Klausmann and Marion Fromberger achieved a German double in Leh. Between the high stakes and temperatures averaging around 30°C in October, the heat will definitely be on in this decisive stop!