Over the years, Christopher Blevins has shed many tears at the Nové Město na Moravě UCI Mountain Bike World Cup circuit. Tears of joy were shed on Sunday after Blevins made history.
Blevins did the double for the second time this season and won both the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup men’s elite cross-country short-track and cross-country Olympic races last weekend in the third round of the 2025 World Cup at Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic.
It was a historic feat for Blevins; he became the first American to win two cross-country Olympic World Cups in one season since Ned Overend in 1994. He also became the first rider in men’s elite history to win the first three short track races of the season.
“As far as World Cups, doing the double at Nové Město, racers in the sport would say it’s the most iconic venue and the biggest race you’d want to win,” Blevins said. “It means a lot, mostly on a personal level, because if there was a place has defined my journey from to junior to U-23 to elite, it would be this place with all the memories here. It’s been a lot of hard work, so it’s really cool to pull it off.”
Blevins has a commanding lead in the men’s elite World Cup championship after winning five of the first six races. He has 940 points while his Specialized Factory Racing teammate Victor Koretzky is in second with 725 points.
On Saturday, Blevins won the cross-country short track race (XCC) in 20 minutes and seven seconds after seven laps around the 1.34-kilometer short track. He barely beat out Koretzky, who finished with the same time, and Filippo Colombo finished one second behind in third.
Blevins had a good start to the short track race and was second early in the start loop. It looked very smooth at the front early for Blevins as he was happy to let Luca Schwarzbauer or Koretzky lead while he hung around the top three.
The Durangoan took a turn at the front at the end of the fifth lap as he was at the front of a lead group of 15 riders.
At the start of the final lap, Blevins was in second but fell back to seventh as he reached down to adjust his dropped chain. It was an incredible feat for Blevins to adjust his chain as quickly as he did with his fingers while maintaining momentum. He bounced back and was fourth at the start of the final straight.
“I haven’t experienced anything close to that,” Blevins said about dropping his chain. “It’s maybe the coolest win I’ve had on the mountain bike with how the situation changed so quickly. I was in a great position, felt great and had the legs for it and then the chain dropped. You have to stay completely in the moment, always in racing, but when something like that dramatic happens, it really does test your presence. It required complete calm and I needed to be really gentle, scooping the chain up on the chain ring.”
Blevins started his attack earlier than Koretzky and Samuel Gaze and still caught up to Koretzky. He powered to Koretzky’s back wheel, then had a final gear ready for the win.
He had a quick burst to the left and passed Koretzky just in time for the line and to put his hands in the air to celebrate. Koretzky looked to his right and shook his head in shock at Blevins’ final kick.
The final attack was unlike any Blevins has had in his men’s elite career, according to Blevins. He called it one of his coolest wins.
One major change for Blevins and most of the field in the short track race was using the gravel tires. Nové Město is the fastest short track of the year with a lot of paved sections, so it’s very tactical and dynamic. Blevins found it very exciting and said there wasn’t a need for a full suspension mountain bike and therefore went with the super skinny gravel tires.
The finish on Sunday in the men’s elite cross-country Olympic (XCO) race wasn’t as dramatic as the XCC race. Blevins won in 1:26:00, seven seconds ahead of Mathis Azzaro in second after eight laps around the 3.82 km track.
Blevins had a solid start in the start loop and was in the top three. He led at the start of the first lap. Koretzky pushed the pace in the middle of the first lap while Blevins wasn’t far behind in second. Alan Hatherly then took a pull on the front as Blevins looked relaxed and composed in fourth in the top group.
Koretzky and Blevins caught the top two toward the end of the second lap. Blevins was third at the start of the third lap as a lead group of seven crossed the line. Blevins stayed near the front but dropped back to seventh about halfway through the third lap.
For the first time in the race, Blevins led as the riders began the fourth lap. It looked like a short track race with how many riders were in the lead group.
Blevins led the entire fourth lap and the start of the fifth lap before Hatherly took the lead and applied some pressure. Blevins had a moment on the descent and lost the front that got him out of the saddle toward the end of the fifth lap. He recovered and was in third. The moment didn’t seem to affect Blevins too much as he led early in the sixth lap.
“You’re so on the limit on a course like this the whole race,” Blevins said. “When you’re fresh and you’re descending, you can use your body a lot more and your muscles. But you’re trying to recover and you get more prone to mistakes on a course like that. It was a mistake and I caught it, but it was because of the pace of the whole race.”
At the start of the seventh lap, Blevins led and made a move on a climb to gap Fabio Püntener by four seconds in the middle of the lap. He kept pushing and had a 10-second gap at the start of the final lap over the six-man chase group.
“It’s not really like me to go far out like that,” Blevins said. “Usually, I wait for a sprint, but I could tell from the lap before that people were hurting more than I expected. So I thought I’d put us all in the fire and go hard. It was the right move … When I was alone by 10 seconds for the last lap, it was a tense and hard effort.”
The gap stayed around eight seconds for most of the final lap but Blevins had the gap at 10 seconds halfway through the lap. It got down to four seconds, but Blevins was smiling heading through the final jump section, knowing he had enough in the tank to cruise to victory.
Blevins was in tears and crouched in a ball in the grass after the race as he realized what he had just accomplished.
Behind Blevins in the men’s elite races was Riley Amos. The Durango star finished 13th in the XCC race in 20:22, 15 seconds behind Blevins. Then on Sunday in the XCO race, Amos finished 27th in 1:28:37, 2:37 behind Blevins.
“Got the chance to race at the front, but not yet good enough to stay there,” Amos wrote on Instagram. “Getting to rub bars with the best in the world is a treat, sure I’d love to do better but I honestly wasn’t counting on it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, just stacking bricks until we get there.”
It was a quality recovery ride for Amos in the XCC. He was around 30th at the start of the second lap. He kept that place at the start of the third lap and was up to 26th at the start of the fourth.
Amos surged up to 17th at the start of the fifth lap and was in that place at the end of the sixth lap, about six seconds back. Amos finished strong and came home in 13th.
On Sunday in the XCO, Amos was as high as ninth early in the race but had a fall on top of a descent in the fourth lap, which set him back. Amos looked like he was out of his rhythm in the middle of the fourth lap after his crash; he was 20th, 26 seconds back.
He continued to ride on his own after his crash and was in 18th, about 50 seconds back. Amos ran out of gas on the sixth lap and was down in 26th and 1:30 back.
Amos is 27th in the men’s elite standings.
Savilia Blunk had a below-average weekend to her standards, finishing 20th in the women’s elite XCO and XCC races.
Blunk finished the XCC race on Saturday in 20:36, 14 seconds behind winner Puck Pieterse after six laps on the short track. Blunk finished the XCO in 1:32:42, 3:10 behind winner Mona Mitterwallner.
In the XCC race, the Durango resident and former Fort Lewis College student-athlete had a decent start and was ninth at the beginning of the start loop. There was a massive group to start the first lap and Blunk got caught up in the thick of the action and fell back to 23rd in the middle of the first lap.
Blunk responded and rallied into the top 10 early in the second lap. Blunk fell back to 20th before catching up to the massive main pack to start the fourth lap.
She didn’t have the leaders’ pace and fell back to 27th, nine seconds back at the end of the fifth lap. It was a nice recovery effort for Blunk in the last lap to finish 20th.
On Sunday in the XCO race, Blunk was in eighth and close to the front at the start of the first lap. But she had to make a tire change, which ruined her race and put her 50 seconds back of the lead. She could never recover. Blunk is 10th in the women’s elite standings.
Durango’s Bailey Cioppa had a quality weekend at Nové Město, finishing 10th in the women’s U-23 XCC and 13th in the women’s U-23 XCO.
Cioppa finished the XCC on Saturday in 21:08, 25 seconds behind the winner Ava Holmgren. She finished the XCO in 1:24:11, 3:52 behind the winner, Ella MacPhee.
“I had the most amount of fun ripping around in the Nové Město forest,” Cioppa wrote on Instagram. “Historically, this track has not been my friend, so I am very happy to find some solid and consistent results!”
Cioppa didn’t have the best start to her XCO race and was down to 30th early in the first lap. She showed great pace late and made it up to 13th by the fourth lap, but had a 40-second gap to 12th. She cut the gap down to six seconds at the finish.
Durango’s Team Segment 28 was represented at Nové Město. Ivan Sippy finished 26th in the men’s U-23 XCC race and 28th in the men’s U-23 XCO race. Dane Grey finished 21st in the men’s U-23 XCC race and did not finish the men’s U-23 XCO race.
The next round of the World Cup is in Saalfelden, Leogang-Salzburgerland, Austria on June 5-8. Blevins feels like he can win at any race and has had some good results there in the past.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
