Samara Maxwell rebounds to take second in women's race as Mathias Flückiger claims men's runner-up spot in duel with privateer Fabio Püntener
Ondřej Cink (Cube) celebrates taking the men's elite XCO win at the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series round in Leogang, 2025(Image credit: WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series)
Ondřej Cink (Cube) delivered a surprise victory in the muddy conditions of Leogang's cross-country Olympic (XCO) races in the fourth round of the Whoop UCI Mountain Bike World Series, while world champion Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) doubled up after having taken the short-track victory on Friday.
Pieterse rode off the front early in the slippery Austrian round, which tested bikes and riders alike.
“It’s been a goal of mine to have the perfect weekend and until now it didn’t work out, but I’m super happy today in this track. I maybe was a bit too eager to get to the front directly, I’m not good at waiting so I decided to go for it," said Pieterse, who rode her first round of the 2025 World Series in Nové Město and has won three of four races so far.
A flat in XCO in the last round stymied her chances to make it four from four and while there were no flawless runs in Sunday's conditions, Pieterse didn't have any major impediment to curtail her run this time.
“Nobody had a perfect race without unclipping or a small tumble or anything," said Pieterse. "I had some troubles on the upper part of the track but I knew others would make mistakes as well as well so as long as it only happened once it’s not a big problem."
The Dutch rider crossed the line at the end of the six lap race with a 16-second margin to Samara Maxwell (Decathlon-Ford), the rider from New Zealand rebounding from a rough start which left her working her way back from mid field. The second-place finish ahead of Nicole Koller (Ghost Factory Racing) was enough to keep the consistent Maxwell – who took her first World Cup win in Brazil’s round 1 and has clinched the runner-up spot in every round since – comfortably in the overall series lead.
Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) on top of the women's elite XCO podium in Leogang (Image credit: WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series)
The favourites may have dominated in the women’s race but in the men’s 7 lap event it was a complete shake up, with the 34-year old Cink’s rise to the top an unexpected turn in Austria for the rider who announced his signing with Cube at the start of this season after the closure of his former team Primaflor Mondraker.
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Cink had looked like he may be reeled in late in the race with the gap falling to as low as 11 seconds, but the Czech rider dug deep to take his first elite World Cup win.
“I’m super happy, I was waiting for a long time for this, I was second many times and I really like this place, I was U23 world champion here in Saalfeden [in 2012]," said Cink. "I was thinking once that my career is already over because I’m one of the oldest here so I don’t have words for that.
“This course suits me very well but the conditions not really, I don’t like the muddy conditions, slippery but I don’t know what happened today, I just did it. With two laps I started to feel really bad but when I saw I opened the gap a little bit I got some power again and I pushed the limit in the last climb.”
In the end Cink crossed the line 18 seconds ahead of the two Swiss riders in pursuit, with Mathias Flückiger (Thömus Maxon) managing to get the better of third-placed privateer Fabio Püntener (Bike Team Solothurn).
It was, on the other hand, a tough day for some of the favourites, particularly for rider from Specialized, the team that has so far dominated the series. Victor Koretzky stepped off the bike after two laps, struggling with illness and the impact of a crash in training but held onto his second in the series. Christopher Blevins, who kept his run of wins going at the short-track on Friday, came 17th in the XCO race. Still there was once again no threat to the series lead for the winner of the last two XCO rounds, not given his stellar start to the season.
Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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