At the end of the week, the world’s best MTBO athletes will race for the overall CX80 MTBO World Cup 2025 and U23 World Championships-titles over three races in Bulgaria.
The MTBO World Cup final begins on Friday morning with a Sprint, on Saturday there is a long distance before the international MTBO season ends with a mixed relay on Sunday.
Close to 100 athletes from 16 different nations bring their bikes to central Bulgaria.
Splittorff is on course for a fourth title in a row
The World Cup standings are exciting until the last, with the women’s standings being particularly close.
Nikoline Splittorff (DEN) has won the overall World Cup title for the past three years in a row and also has a lead before the decisive races.
The Dane has scored 567 points so far, but Ruska Saarela (FIN) is not far behind after collecting 530 points. Saarela won two titles at WMTBOC in Poland and has impressively only finished 4th or better in the seven World Cup races that have been run so far this season.
Splittorff and Saarela on the WMTBOC Mass start. Photo: wilcze.ok
After that, there is a big gap down to the battle for third place, which also looks to be exciting.
Gabriella Gustafsson (SWE) has 309 points, Camilla Søgaard (DEN) has scored 292 points, while Martina Tichovska (CZE) is in fifth place with 288 points.
Ludvik can take first overall title
Among the men, Vojtech Ludvik has a good chance of winning his first World Cup title. The Czech has won many titles in his long career, but still lacks the overall World Cup trophy.
Ludvik won both the Mass start and the Long in Poland in August and has so far collected 446 points.
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Vojtech Ludvik during the WMTBOC Mass start. Photo: wilcze.ok
That is more than 100 points more than second place, Miika Nurmi (343 points).
Krystof Bogar (CZE) is in third place with 334 points, Samuel Pokala has 290 points in fourth place, while Fabiano Bettega (ITA) and Jonas Maiselis (LTU) follow with 269 points and 267 points respectively,
Nurmi, Bogar, Pokala and Maiselis all have one World Cup race where they have scored 0 points and thus have a good chance of climbing the standings, where the seven out of nine best results count.
Go to CX80 MTBO World Cup standings
In the U23 MTBO World Cup, Hannes Hnilica (AUT) has a narrow lead with 470 points ahead of Tatu Aaltonen, FIN (455 points) and Armel Berthaud, FRA (450 points).
Tilda Palm (SWE) leads the women’s U23 MTBO World Cup with 457 points, Iris Aurora Pecorari (ITA) has 435 points, while Lucie Nedomlelova (CZE) has 355 points.
Go to U23 MTBO World Cup standings
Czechia leads the Team World Cup by a large margin after three out of three relay wins this season, ahead of Finland and Lithuania.
Go to MTBO Team World Cup standings
The CX80 MTBO World Cup can be followed through a basic live stream, GPS-tracking and live results.