The reigning World Champs showed exactly why they're the riders to beat
Evie Richards and Isabella Holmgren went into the first World Cup race of 2025 with rainbow jerseys on their backs — quite literally the biggest targets in their fields. But fresh off a long offseason they quickly reminded everyone why they earned their world titles.
Richards won Saturday’s Elite Women’s short track race in Araxá in a thriller. She was game for every attack her competitors made, before exploding on the final climb of the seven-lap race. Only Samara Maxwell had the legs to follow, but she remained decidedly on Richards’ back wheel as Richards celebrated across the line.
Isabella Holmgren was flying in her World Champs kit and Supercaliber.
“This wasn’t a target race for me. So I’m obviously super happy I won,” Richards said after the race. “I definitely wasn’t very confident coming into it. But I like to win, so I was really focused before. And obviously I’m a racer. This is what I love doing. So I just give it everything and just see where I come in. And I won.”
Holmgren’s race was much less dramatic. The 2024 Women’s U23 short track and XCO overall champion went clear of the pack thanks to blisteringly fast second and third laps, and held on for a four-second win over second place Katharina Sadnik.
Evie Richards rode a tactically brilliant race to start her 2025 World Cup campaign.
“It’s my first race of the season, so I was really nervous,” Holmgren said. “Obviously, I didn’t know where the fitness was at and everything. I just tried to go in and see how the race played out, and then sort of make my strategy during the race. Because start of the year, you don’t know how anyone else is going.”
Richards was able to exorcise a few demons with a return trip to Araxá. In 2024, she suffered an injury at the venue that forced her to miss the next round in Nové Město. She returned in 2025 and confidently handled the course’s mean features.
Isabella celebrating across the line ... we saw a lot of this in 2024, too.
“Every lap was like, ‘Focus, focus, focus,’ and I think if you watch the jumps, I probably wasn’t the fastest down them,” Richards said. “But for me, it was like, I want to get home in one piece. I’ve got a house to renovate … I’ve got a lawn to mow when I get back.”
Both riders have big ambitions in 2025, though Holmgren’s aren’t solely on a mountain bike. The Lidl-Trek rider is one the most promising young racers in the cycling ecosystem, which means she’ll be taking her talents to the road soon. But she still has Sunday’s XCO race to go, not to mention Round 2 of the XC World Cup next weekend, also in Araxá. She won’t be racing a full World Cup slate this season, but if she brings the same energy and effort that she displayed Saturday to the road, she’s going to be a force to be reckoned with no matter what bike she’s racing.
“I don’t have too much focus on the overall because I’ll be missing some of the World Cups,” Holmgren said. “But I’ll just continue to have fun and give 100 percent in all my races.”
