It has been a whirlwind week for Evie Richards. On Friday, the Red Bull athlete was racing her final short-track mountain bike race of the season, coming second, then on Sunday she finished third in her last Olympic cross-country (XCO) race of the year.
This was the final round of the Whoop UCI Mountain Bike World Series for 2025, in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, where Richards had just won the short track World Series for the first time. But the week didn’t end there.
“It’s been busy,” the 28-year-old, who rides for Trek Factory Racing, tells Cycling Weekly. “You never sleep much after the short track, just because there’s so much adrenaline, and the race is always finished quite late, especially after drug testing. And then we had the XCO, and then we partied loads, and then we drove home.
Now, she is back at home in Malvern, on the border between England and Wales, where she celebrated her mum’s birthday, in between recovery. It’s quite far removed from the trails of Québec, where she was on Sunday.
“When I come back to Malvern, I just sink back into normal life, not like you forget, but like you see a picture or someone comments on Instagram, you’re like, ‘Oh, I just did that’,” Richards explains. “When I come home, you kind of do forget a bit what’s just happened, really. I’m back to being Evie at home, but a content Evie at home, if that makes sense.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
2025 might have been the two-time world champion’s best season yet. There were two short track World Cup victories, plus the overall, nine more podiums at World Cups across XCO and short track, and she finished fourth in the XCO standings too. However, to Richards, it hasn’t felt so straightforward.
“Someone said to me halfway through the year, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re having an incredible year’,” the Red Bull athlete recalls. “I just remember thinking that this feels like the most turbulent, hard year I’ve ever had. I feel like I say that every year, but I just can’t believe what I’ve achieved through everything.”
The turbulence came from illness, which took her out of the Val di Sole…