Mona Mitterwallner (Austria) and Simon Andreassen (Denmark) won the rainbow jerseys at the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships (XCM) on Sunday at Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia. It was the first time the MTB Marathon event had been held in North America in the 22-year history of the championships.
For a third time in four years, Mitterwallner secured the rainbow jersey in the elite women's marathon race, with the 22 year old finishing the 104km course in 5:15:06.
Sina Frei (Switzerland) finished 26 seconds behind to claim the silver medal while Candice Lill (South Africa), the silver medallist last year, rode over the line solo another 43 seconds later to take bronze. The 2016 XCM title holder, Jolanda Neff (Switzerland) finished one spot off the podium in fourth.
Two-time junior MTB world champion Laura Stigger (Austria) was fifth and Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Argentina), the women's leader in the Life Time Grand Prix series, came sixth. The top rider for the USA was Alexis Skarda in ninth place.
A two-time junior cross-country MTB world champion and the elite men's Marathon bronze medallist at Worlds in 2022, the 26-year-old Andreassen finished in front to take his first elite world title with a time of 4:33:08.
Andreassen had worked his way up to the front group and attacked to victory after starting in the back row, along with Coloradoan Christopher Blevins, the reigning Pan-American cross-country mountain bike champion.,
Blevins finished close behind to take second, 10 seconds back from Andreassen.
"A wild day starting in the back of the field and straight down the mountain onto singletrack," said Blevins on Instagram. "4:30 hours was plenty of time to work my way up, but was still surprised when I realized I had made it to the front group."
David Valero Serrano (Spain) came over the line just two seconds back from Blevins to take third.
2021 XCM world champion Andreas Seewald (Germany) finished fourth and 2024 MTB short track world champion Victor Koretzky (France) in fifth. USA's Cole Paton was ninth.
