For one day Val di Sole felt closer to the sky. Up where the mountains close in on the valley, where the air smells of dust and forest, the alien landed. Tom Pidcock chose the biggest stage of all, the 2026 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships Val di Sole-Trentino, to remind everyone why his name belongs among the phenomena.
Starting from the fifth row, the two-time Olympic Cross-country champion rode through the dust of the riders ahead of him and left them behind one by one, until there was nothing in front but the rainbow jersey. Mathieu van der Poel tried, and the crowd pushed him. But when the race reached its decisive moment the Dutchman was nowhere near the front. He wanted the one world title missing from his collection. He will have to come back for it: today the result sheet says 30th.
More than four minutes up the road, Pidcock changed gear with two laps to go, the way only the very best do. One acceleration, then another, and a gap that stretched until it became a verdict, with compatriot Charlie Aldridge the last to raise the white flag. The UCI World title is his. So is Val di Sole.
And while the Briton took the race everyone had come for, Daolasa celebrated a day that belongs in the history of Italian mountain biking. Martina Berta took a superb silver in the Elite women’s race behind Switzerland’s Sina Frei, and in the U23 women’s race Valentina Corvi turned a rainbow dream into fact. From morning to afternoon, a Sunday to remember, at the end of a week that drew some 30,000 spectators, a sea of flags and colours held together by one language: mountain biking.
PIDCOCK THE VERDICT, PUNCHARD THE SURPRISE
He has won eight of the last ten Cross-country races he has entered, on top of the last two Olympic titles, in Tokyo and Paris. When Tom Pidcock decides to come back to the fat tyres, there is usually very little the rest can do about it. The Championships in Trentino were no exception, despite an awkward start from the fifth row, the same as Mathieu van der Poel.
Unlike the Dutchman, the Briton went hunting for the front straight away, with the legs he keeps for the big occasions. The 27-year-old from Leeds had no easy ride against riders who do this all year round. At the head of the race the French set the pace and made the recovery hard, and Pidcock only began to appear in the leading group around halfway. A couple of mistakes delayed the junction, but on the sixth lap came the first thrust.
Aldridge, Boichis, Vidaurre and the surprise of the day, Punchard, answered it at first. Then the lactic acid arrived and the outcome began to take shape. Pidcock’s rivals let go one after another, Aldridge the last of them, on the penultimate lap. The Briton crossed the line alone, 17 seconds ahead of his compatriot. Bronze went to Canada’s Cole Punchard at 31 seconds, another rider who had started from the middle of the grid. Chile’s Martin Vidaurre was fourth at 59 seconds, a puncture at the start of the final lap costing him a bronze that had looked close. Fifth was France’s Adrien Boichis, the UCI Cross-country Short Track world champion, who faded in the second half of the race after a strong start.
For Tom Pidcock this is a second Elite Cross-country world title, alongside the rainbow jerseys he has won in cyclo-cross, in e-Mountain Bike and on the road as a Junior. Trentino has been kind to him this year: last April he won the Arco stage of the Tour of the Alps.
“Along with the Tour de France, these UCI World Championships were my target for the season. It has been a difficult period, marked by the death of Finlay Tarling. This win is for his brother Joshua,” said Tom Pidcock.
“Getting back towards the front was complicated: I crashed in training on Friday and I had some back pain. I could not make extreme changes of pace, so I tried to ride at my own tempo and keep the energy I needed to make the difference at the end.”
“I also send a hug to Tadej Pogačar, who was watching us today from hospital. I hope he recovers soon. I am happy to have shown that I am stronger than Mathieu van der Poel on a mountain bike. I think he is stronger than me on the road, but one day I want to win the UCI world title there as well.”
Mathieu van der Poel’s Championships ended in a bleak 30th place, 4 minutes 40 seconds down. The Dutchman never really got into the race, hampered by a slow start and by a feel for the mountain bike that is not yet what it needs to be, despite the encouraging signs at the Les Gets UCI World Series. “I just wasn’t good enough. I don’t really know the reason. It was more or less the same as last year: a good feeling in Les Gets, but bad at the Worlds.”
FREI TAKES HER FIRST ELITE TITLE, BERTA SPRINTS TO SILVER
Four days after gold in the Cross-country Team Relay, Martina Berta went out and took an individual medal as well, with strength, with patience, and with that particular ability of hers to stay in a race even when the pace at the front turns prohibitive.
At Daolasa she rode with her head before her legs, choosing when to commit and when to hold on, and settled the silver in a sprint on the finishing straight. Gold had already gone to Switzerland with Sina Frei, out of everyone’s reach. Silver, at 1 minute 07 seconds, went to the 28-year-old from La Salle, a village of two thousand people in the Aosta Valley that can now claim two athletes who make people dream: Berta and the alpine skier Federica Brignone. Bronze went to another Swiss, Nicole Koller.
Berta was sharp from the opening lap, taking the wheels of Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds and of Frei, the two brightest early on. On the second lap Frei forced the pace on the climb: Rissveds lost ground, while Berta answered with a show of strength and got back to the leaders.
The Swede, the defending UCI world champion, slipped back gradually, losing touch with Koller and with the Netherlands’ Puck Pieterse as well, before a puncture ended her medal hopes altogether. On the third lap Berta too had to let Frei go, as the Swiss changed pace and rode away towards gold. From there Berta was in a different race, the one for silver, with Koller closing from behind and catching her on the fifth lap.
The last two laps were Sina Frei’s victory parade. She took her first Elite Cross-country world title and a second world medal in Val di Sole, after Cross-country Short Track gold here in 2021. Berta kept enough in reserve for the sprint that mattered, and got the better of Nicole Koller.
Behind them, Puck Pieterse was fourth at 1 minute 25 seconds and New Zealand’s Samara Maxwell fifth at 1 minute 48 seconds. Jenny Rissveds was only seventh, at 2 minutes 29 seconds.
“More than a goal for my season, I think this was a real dream, especially after two years in which I had a lot of difficulty, particularly in the middle part of the season. What I believe is that only I can influence myself and my performance. So I followed only myself and my own rhythm, without thinking too much about the others. I still cannot take in what has happened, but I cannot wait to wear this jersey at the next UCI World Cup rounds,” said Sina Frei.
“It is incredible, this medal was the big goal of the season,” said Martina Berta. “I managed to arrive in form and I am very happy with the result. The affection and the enthusiasm of the Val di Sole crowd were incredible. After the second and the fourth climb everything sounded muffled for at least a minute. Thank you to everyone who came here to support us: it matters, because it means we are getting real emotion across to the public as well.”
U23: CORVI CLAIMS THE WOMEN’S WORLD TITLE, ROUFFIAC TAKES THE MEN’S GOLD
The final day of the 2026 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships Val di Sole-Trentino delivered two compelling Cross-country U23 races, with Valentina Corvi and Naël Rouffiac taking the UCI world titles at Daolasa di Commezzadura.
In the women’s race, Valentina Corvi lived up to her pre-race billing with a dominant performance from start to finish. The 21-year-old established an immediate lead on the opening lap and gradually extended the gap over a strong international field.
Swiss rider Anina Hutter was the only competitor able to mount a serious challenge, briefly reducing the deficit during the third lap. Corvi responded immediately, rebuilding her advantage and entering the final lap with the race firmly under control.
She crossed the finish line in 1:19:34, securing the rainbow jersey by 43 seconds. Hutter took silver, while another Swiss rider, Monique Halter, completed the podium at 1:55. Halter had already claimed the U23 women’s Cross-country Short Track world title earlier in the week.
For Corvi, the result capped a highly successful Championships, following her gold medal in Wednesday’s Cross-country Team Relay.
“It is incredible. I had been looking forward to this race for so long, and winning here today was a dream,” Corvi said. “I knew from the moment I moved into the U23 category that the UCI World Championships would be held here. At the beginning of the season I told my coach that we had to win, and I marked the date on the calendar straight away.
“I am proud of myself and particularly happy with the progress I have made mentally. The crowd was fantastic and gave me an extra boost. At one point I could not feel the fatigue any more. I could only hear the people.”
The men’s U23 title went to France, with Naël Rouffiac producing the decisive move in the second half of the race to claim the rainbow jersey.
The first half of the contest remained tightly balanced, with a large group staying in contention. Rouffiac changed the complexion of the race on the fifth lap, attacking and gradually establishing a gap over his rivals.
The Frenchman held his advantage through the next two laps, while the battle for the remaining podium places continued behind him. On the final lap, compatriot Alix André-Gallis moved clear of the chasing group to secure silver, nine seconds behind Rouffiac.
Nicolas Halter took bronze at 13 seconds, adding another medal after winning the U23 UCI Cross-country Short Track title earlier in the Championships. Denmark’s Gustav Pedersen and Germany’s Kruger rounded out the top five.
“I am speechless. It is a dream come true,” Rouffiac said. “The plan was to attack towards the end, but I was feeling good and decided to go for it on the fifth lap. I am really happy to share this with a teammate. It was the perfect day.”
LAPPARTIENT: “WHAT AN ATMOSPHERE IN VAL DI SOLE, SEE YOU IN 2031”
“Val di Sole has proved to be a perfect organisational machine,” said David Lappartient, President of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). “There was a wonderful atmosphere, with so many fans out around the circuit. It is incredible that on a course as long as the downhill track, yesterday there were spectators everywhere. Today we closed with the Cross-country, where the riders put on a show, starting from the back and even managing to win, as Tom Pidcock did. It was a fine preview of what will happen in 2031 with the Super Worlds organised here in Trentino, across twenty disciplines. It will be a great event: the region is beautiful and welcoming, and it will be a real pleasure to come back.”
Italy finished the 2026 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships Val di Sole-Trentino with four medals: gold in the Cross-country Team Relay and for Valentina Corvi in the U23 Cross-country, silver for Martina Berta and bronze for Filippo Gilardino in the Junior Downhill. Switzerland topped the medal table with five golds and fifteen medals in all (5-5-5), ahead of France (3-1-3), Austria (3-1-1), Italy (2-1-1) and Australia (2-0-0).
VAL DI SOLE, A WORLD-CLASS SUCCESS
There is enthusiasm in the words of Fabio Sacco, Director of the Val di Sole Tourism Board and of Grandi Eventi Val di Sole, following an edition of the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships that promises to be remembered for a long time, in Val di Sole and far beyond.
“In almost twenty years of mountain biking in this area we have lived through many memorable moments, but I sincerely believe that, taken as a whole, this week has reached an even higher level. Nothing was missing: the performances of the champions who came here to give their very best, a technical and organisational operation that has taken another significant step forward, and the response of an exceptional crowd, in numbers and in enthusiasm. Val di Sole-Trentino 2026 is a UCI World Championships that has made its mark, and will continue to do so in the years to come.”
“Over these past few days we have had the pleasure of welcoming the top representatives of the UCI, starting with President Lappartient, and it is clear that, despite the long tradition of major events in this area, these UCI World Championships exceeded even their expectations. Their feedback, together with that of the athletes and industry professionals who gave the event top marks, encourages us to continue along the path we have taken. It is a strategy that is delivering increasingly tangible results in terms of visitor numbers and in the profile of Val di Sole and Trentino as destinations in the international outdoor tourism market.”
“Our thanks go to everyone who made this achievement possible: from our sponsors and partners to the entire organising team, the volunteers and all those who worked with commitment and passion to make the event a success. The results, both sporting and in the media, are a source of great satisfaction.”
“Now we are already looking ahead to our next goals. The first will be the return of the UCI Mountain Bike World Series in 2027, but our sights are already set further ahead, on the five-year journey that will bring the 2031 UCI Cycling World Championships to Trentino. It will be an extraordinary milestone, bringing the entire province into the spotlight and placing Trentino at the very heart of world cycling.”
