August 24, 2022 - (Les Gets, France) As the 2022 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships unfold in Les Gets (France), Friday 26 August is a date for the diary: it’s when the UCI World Champions for E-MTB cross-country (XC) will be crowned. Part of the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships since 2019, the E-MTB XC races are hotly anticipated, testing the skills of the regular cross-country Olympic (XCO) exponents, and attracting new names to the growing mountain bike format.
As with the previous three editions, all the bikes have a maximum continuous power rating of 250 watts, with an assistance limit of 25km/h: a ‘level playing field’ in terms of technology, providing each of the riders with an equal additional power resource on a track that is anything but a level playing field!
It means that a strategic approach to when and how to best use the electrical assistance is an important part of the riders’ strategy, delivered along with their handling skills, line choice, and of course, their own physical input.
The course: entertainment guaranteed
The 2022 E-MTB XC UCI World Championships will be raced on a 2.6km course. It benefits from the developments made on the XCO course by Les Gets organisers for the 2021 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and the 2022 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. They have blended technical sections and natural elements and combined climbing and descending to create the best challenge for the riders and the most entertainment for spectators, trackside and worldwide.
On top of that, this year’s event takes the best learnings from the UCI World Cup series where the double-header races see the same course used in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions to get the best riding from the topography.
“The E-MTB course takes the start and finish of the XCO, and uses part of the course but in reverse,” explains Bertrand Josué, Events Manager at Les Gets. “The aim is to make the most of the electric assistance with steep and technical climbs on the roots and many obstacles at the top of the course. The track joins the finish using a downhill section of the XCO, and closes with some steep sections in the meadow.”
Women: all former UCI World Champions at the start
In the women’s race, the entry list shows the competitiveness of the field, with all three current or previous UCI World Champions: 2021 winner Nicole Göldi (SUI), 2020’s Mélanie Pugin (FRA) and the very first E-MTB UCI World Champion crowned in 2019, Nathalie Schneitter (SUI).
Göldi will give everything to retain her rainbow jersey, just as she has given everything to forge her slender advantage in the UCI E-MTB XC World Cup this year, leading at the season’s halfway mark by just 2 points from Justine Tonso – who will doubtless be equally motivated to win, in her homeland. The same can be said of Pugin who has been using her Enduro racing as part of her preparation, and Laura Charles who performed well in the French rounds of the E-MTB UCI World Cup and has continued her form with the BikeWorldTour in Switzerland.
Schneitter and Germany’s Sofia Wiedenroth are amongst the other women gunning to spoil Göldi’s party!
Men: what to expect
Current UCI World Champion Jérôme Gilloux is the only man to have podiumed at all three previous editions of the UCI E-Mountain Bike Cross-country World Championships, with two silvers and a gold to his name. As the clear 2022 UCI World Cup overall leader he presents himself as favourite for Les Gets…
Except UCI World Championships don’t always work like that! And there are 37 names on the entry list that would like to think otherwise. Not least Gilloux’s fellow Frenchman Hugo Pigeon – who demonstrated his skill and nerve at the Alpe d’Huez Megavalanche Enduro race – and the Swiss trio of Joris Ryf, Loïc Noël and Fabio Spena, who each believe that the gold medal should go home with them across the border! For other contenders, also consider Jeroen van Eck (NED). After a great start to the UCI World Cup, then a crash and a three-month layoff, could he be back in form at the right time?
And then there’s a new kid on the block… new to the E-MTB UCI World Championships, but no stranger to wearing the rainbow bands. Peter Sagan. The 32-year-old Slovakian may have gone a little under the radar in winning the XCO Junior UCI World Championships back in 2008 but hit super-stardom with his three back-to-back Elite Road UCI World Championships victories, 2015-17. What are his expectations from Les Gets? “It will be a party,” Sagan said.
E-MTB XC is a young discipline that has also seen names such as Alan Hatherly (RSA), Julien Absalon (FRA), Christopher Blevins (USA) and Tom Pidcock (GBR) reach the major podiums. It’s a new frontier where anything still seems possible.
