Young stars Mitterwallner and Andreassen are 2024 UCI MTB Marathon World Champions!

Young winners, with hard-won pedigrees

At a historic first staging of the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships in the USA, Austria’s Mona Mitterwallner retained her 2023 crown and claimed her third cross-country marathon (XCM) rainbow jersey. Denmark’s Simon Andreassen won his first XCM UCI World Champion title.

In a year where some of the most experienced campaigners have been getting success in the UCI MTB Marathon World Cup, it was the younger riders – Mitterwallner is 22 and Andreassen, despite being on the scene for almost a decade, is only 26 years old – who were the cream of the crop in Snowshoe, West Virginia, on Sunday 22 September.

Stacked women’s field

Mitterwallner won in 5:15:06, ahead of Switzerland's Sina Frei (5:15:32), Olympic silver medalist in cross-country Olympic (XCO) at Tokyo 2020. Third was South Africa’s Candice Lill (5:16:16), who continues to have a stunning year following her 2023 UCI XCM World Championships silver medal in Glentress, Scotland: she has won African Continental titles in both XCO and cross-country short track (XCC), and graced the podium at two Elite UCI XCO World Cup rounds.

Of the 33 finishers, a resurgent 2016 UCI XCM World Champion - also 2017 UCI XCO World Champion and 2020 Olympic Champion - Jolanda Neff (SUI) was 4th. Mitterwallner’s compatriot Laura Stigger finished 5th, in front of Argentina’s Sofia Gomez Villafane (6th) and Namibia’s Vera Looser, winner of the first round of the 2024 UCI XCM World Cup, in Nové Město na Moravě, Czechia.

Men’s winner: pushed all the way!

Andreassen’s winning time was 4:33:08. Just 10 seconds separated him from the USA’s 26-year-old Christopher Blevins, 2021 UCI XCC World Champion. Blevins had already tasted success at Snowshoe with XCO and XCC wins at previous rounds of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup. Third place went to Spain’s David Valero, 2024 XCM European Championships silver medalist, and winner of the bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Of the 79 finishers, 2021 UCI XCM World Champion Andreas Seewald of Germany was fourth (just 18 seconds covered the first four finishers), and France’s Paris 2024 Olympic silver medalist Victor Koretzky 5th. Colombia’s 2019 and 2020 UCI XCM World Champion Leonardo Páez (winner of the second round of the 2024 UCI XCM World Cup, in Megève, France), finished 12th in a fast bunch.

Young winners, with hard-won pedigrees

Now with three UCI XCM world titles to her name (2021, 2023 and 2024), Mitterwallner surpasses the two XCM rainbow jerseys of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (FRA) and can now chase the five and six titles, respectively, of the sport’s legends, Annika Langvad (DEN) and Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå (NOR).

Mitterwallner remains the youngest winner of the women’s title, she is the youngest woman to hit three titles, and is the only Austrian woman to win the title (emulating her male counterpart Alban Lakata (2010, 2015, 2017),

For Andreassen, it may be his first XCM UCI world title but it’s not the first time he’s made it to the UCI Worlds podium, having taken the bronze medal two years ago in Haderslev, Denmark, just a minute behind an unstoppable Sam Gaze (NZL) and Seewald.

On that occasion, he became the first Danish man to make the podium of the UCI MTB Marathon World Championships, and now he becomes the first man from his country to be awarded the rainbow bands.

Both Sunday’s winners have been Junior XCO UCI World Champions. Following her silver medal in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, in 2019, Mitterwallner took to the top step on home soil in Leogang 2020. The very next year the young star from Hall in Tirol, took the Under 23 UCI World title in Val di Sole, Italy. Andreassen, meanwhile, won two back-to-back Junior XCO rainbow jerseys: in Lillehammer-Hafjell, Norway, 2014 and Vallnord, Austria, 2015.

Both riders are multiple National Champions in XCO and have also enjoyed success at European level.