Stigger Outsprints Richards for First Elite XCC Title

Laura Stigger won her first elite world title with a photo finish at the 2026 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Val di Sole, edging Evie Richards in the Short Track race by a tyre’s width.

Fourth at the last turn, world champion at the line

The elite women’s ten-lap race came down to a final sprint on a tight circuit. The course climbed at a steep 20 percent and twisted through sharp turns under clear skies.

Jenny Rissveds tore the race open with a hard surge on lap seven. At the start of the last lap, Sina Frei hit the front but tangled with Rissveds in a curve, allowing Stigger and Richards to slip clear.

Richards launched the sprint out of the final corner, but Stigger matched her on the left and threw her bike. The margin at the line was less than a wheel rim. Frei crossed third, just one second behind the winner.

A junior promise turns elite

The gold medal is Stigger’s first World Championship medal in the elite ranks at age 25. Earlier that season she had already shown her strength with a dominant XCO World Cup win at Nové Město, where a single lap-four attack put her 47 seconds clear.

Defending champion Alessandra Keller finished sixth, 12 seconds back. Puck Pieterse, fresh from a mountains classification win at the Tour de France Femmes, placed eighth after an early charge faded.

A sprint decided by a breath closed a chapter the Austrian had been writing since her junior rainbow jersey days.