WHO ARE THE TOP XC RIDERS IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW?

Even though we’ve got a break of a few months before the first World Cup XC race takes place this year, we still like to check on the latest UCI points rankings once in a while. The UCI rankings are based on the last 12 months of racing all over the world.

While the Northern Hemisphere’s XC racers often take about a six month break for the colder months, October to April, the racers in the Southern Hemisphere—including Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa— might see their own racing schedules pick up from December through March, when they are experiencing summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

With all the high-caliber XC racing that took place in 2024—including the Olympics, the UCI World Cup Series, the UCI World Championships, and all the national championships that took place, it’s can be hard to figure out who the world’s top racers of the past 12 months have been.

For instance, Nino Schurter, who is recognized as the greatest XC racer in history (with ten UCI Elite Men’s World Championship titles and nine Elite Men’s XCO World Cup titles) has dropped out of the top ten in the current points rankings and is now ranked 12th in the latest UCI points rankings,  even though he won one of the World Cup Series Elite Men’s XCO races last year.

Here are the top ten riders in the latest Elite Men’s UCI rankings, (last updated on January 14, 2025):

Here are the top ten riders in the latest Elite Women’s UCI rankings (dated January 14, 2025):

Here are the top ten riders in the latest Junior Men’s UCI rankings (dated January 14, 2025):

It bodes well for the future of America’s cross-country racing that three of the world’s top ten Junior Men are from the U.S.

Here are the top ten riders in the latest Junior Women’s UCI rankings (dated January 14, 2025):

For those race fans who want to see where America’s other top-ranking Elite Men are currently ranked, here are the Elite Men’s rankings from 11th to 25th place:

ELITE MEN’S XC RANKINGS: 11TH TO 25TH (as of Jan. 14, 2025:

Notice how Tom Pidcock, the current/two-time Olympic gold medalist is ranked 18th here, six places below Nino Schurter, since Pidcock didn’t enter as many UCI mountain bike races as he could have, since he was also racing on the road.

Two of America’s top Elite Women XCO are ranked outside the top ten, including Haley Batten, who is currently sitting in eleventh place. Haley won one of the World Cup XCO races in Brazil last year and also placed second in the Olympics, so we expect that she’ll be moving up the ranks in the year ahead.

Here are the UCI’s Elite Women XCO rankings from 11th to 25th:

If you want to check the latest UCI rankings for yourself, we recommend xcodata.com, which is where we first found all the above rankings. After that, we went to the UCI’s own website to confirm that the xcodata.com rankings matched the ones shown on the UCI website.