Evie Richards and Isabella Holmgren are unstoppable

Evie Richards and Isabella Holmgren cannot be stopped in short track racing.

Just six days after winning their World Cup XCC season debuts in Araxá, they repeated the feat for Round 2. Richards once again put in a ferocious attack on the final lap and held off her hard-charging competition to win by a (relatively) comfortable margin of one second. Holmgren was challenged throughout her race after a somewhat easy victory last Saturday, but when it was time to secure the victory, she delivered at the line. Holmgren has now won all three of her World Cup starts this season.

Simply put: These two are World Champions for a reason.

Richards is picking up where she left off in 2024, when she finished Top 3 in her last three XCC starts, including the win that earned her the rainbow stripes in Andorra. Richards now has seven World Cup short track wins in her career — the most of any Elite Women’s rider ever. Her strong early season form is an encouraging sign for the rest of her World Cup campaign.

“I’m exactly where I want to be, but I’m not at my peak, I wouldn’t say,” Richards said after the race. “So to win when you’re not at your peak is hard — it’s a lot of pressure tactically. So I’m super happy. And yeah, leaving Brazil with two World Cup wins in the rainbow stripes, it’s not easy. So stoked.”

Holmgren is used to landing on the top step — in 2024, she won all but two World Cup starts. But she was pressured from start to finish on Friday, and was forced to deploy a skill set she rarely gets to use: Her sprint.

“Yeah, it was so hard,” Holmgren said after the race. “I tried to get ahead at the top of the last climb on the last lap, but it didn’t work out. So it was a full flat grass sprint. And I’m glad I’ve been working on my sprints a bit [laughs]. It was a good one.”

The atmosphere in Brazil has been incredible, but the racing itself has been brutally hard. Not only is the course filled with difficult features, necessitating riders to choose the Top Fuel as their bike of choice, but the heat has been another obstacle — doubly so for British riders like Richards, who are used to cooler temperatures and muddy trails.

“Honestly, it’s so hot I started with ice down my sock, down my bra, everywhere,” Richards said. “I was iced up.”

The Trek Factory Racing-Pirelli XC crew will take on XCO racing Saturday. The schedule: 

• U23 Women – 9 a.m. local, 8 a.m. ET
• U23 Men – 10:45 a.m. local, 9:45 a.m. ET
• Elite Women – 12:45 p.m. local, 11:45 a.m. ET
• Elite Men – 2:45 p.m. local, 1:45 p.m. ET

Madigan Munro, Gwendalyn Gibson, Riley Amos, and Gunnar Holmgren will have a chance to take home impressive results and build towards the meat of the season, along with Richards and Holmgren. With a long break until the next World Cup race in Nové Město in late May, expect to see flat-out racing.

But no matter what happens, there’s already plenty to celebrate.

“The Top Fuel was great today. And, yeah, I’ve got a custom painted bike, which is insane, and it’s quite cool to be in the rainbow jersey,” Richards said. “So I’m really happy, really happy to win.”