Briton Richards Enjoys Excellent Weekend With Two Second Places At Lake Placid Stop
Evie Richards dug deep over the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup weekend in Lake Placid to record a second-place finish in Friday’s XCC race to lead the standings going into the last 2025 race next week and another second in Sunday’s XCO race. Here is all you need to know:
– In Friday’s women’s XCC short-track race, Briton Richards produced an excellent ride to finish second behind Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds by a margin of two seconds with Austrian Laura Stigger fifth.
– The result leaves 2024 XCC world champion Richards top of the XCC standings on 1570 points with one race left, Swiss Alessandra Keller second on 1420, Rissveds third on 1410 and Stigger back in eighth.
– Richards, 28, said: “I feel good. When you are so close to winning, you are like, ‘What could I have done to win?’ I am really happy that I am still in the overall and it was a really tactical race. It will be a similar sort of race in Canada, so it will be a similar set-up. Fingers crossed.”
– Sunday’s race saw Stigger start fast on the opening lap then Rissveds put the hammer down to lead the race and press home the advantage until the finish with Richards launching a late attack that allowed her to open a few seconds over American Savilia Blunk and Samara Maxwell.
– 2021 XCO world champion Richards held on to take second 2m16s behind Rissveds with Australian Maxwell third, the result leaving Maxwell first in the 2025 XCO standings on 2103 points, Rissveds second, Keller third and Richards fourth with 1457 points ahead of Mont-Sainte-Anne.
– Sunday’s XCO race for the men saw Chilean Martín Vidaurre Kossmann stay with the contenders at the front, a thrilling final bunch sprint seeing him end in fourth just two seconds behind American winner Christopher Blevins – who held off Frenchman Adrien Boichis in a photo finish.
– The result cemented Vidaurre Kossmann’s second place in the 2025 XCO standings behind Blevins, who was crowned overall champion in front of his home fans after winning the XCC race on Friday as well.
Explore more Mountain Bike content HERE.
