Swiss XCO Is in Safe Hands After Schurter
The retirement of Nino Schurter left a question hanging over Swiss XCO heading into 2026. Dario Lillo answered it inside the first race of the season.
The 23-year-old Giant Factory Off-Road rider had never finished higher than 13th at World Cup level before South Korea. On Saturday he won by nearly two minutes in conditions that broke most of the field, setting the fastest lap of the race and building a lead that peaked at over a minute. He knew it was coming. When he checked the forecast mid-week and saw rain predicted for Sunday, he told his teammates it was going to be his day - and he was right.
Finn Treudler, despite a wretched afternoon of mechanicals, showed that Lillo is not the only young Swiss talent capable of running at the front. Swiss XCO is not going anywhere.
Cube's Chainguide Gamble Wrecked Treudler's Race
The most consequential equipment decision of the weekend was the one that wasn't made. Cube Factory Racing chose not to run a chainguide on Finn Treudler's bike, calculating that the device would clog in the saturated conditions. The gamble backfired catastrophically.
Treudler - in his first elite XCO season after graduating from Under 23 last year - had been the only rider within half a minute of Lillo after the opening lap. He had the pace to be on that podium. Then the chain started coming off. Four times in total, each one costing him positions he could not get back. He finished 13th - a result that tells you nothing about how fast he actually was on Saturday.
Equipment choices defined finishing positions all day. Cannondale read the brief correctly, running the Lefty fork's one-sided design to exploit mud clearance advantages that paid dividends for both Luca Martin and Charlie Aldridge. On a day where some riders elected to switch tyres mid-race Formula 1-style and others saw their challenges ended by punctures, the teams that got their setup right came away with the results.
Sina Frei Completed Only the Tenth XCC-XCO Double in History
Sina Frei had broken her hand over the winter. On Saturday, just months later, she won the hardest XCO of the season opener in conditions that broke most of the field - and did so having already won the XCC on Friday.
Only ten riders in World Cup history have completed that double in a single weekend. Frei is now one of them.
The win did not come easily. Jenny Rissveds shot to a 25-second lead on the opening lap and looked to be running away with it. Frei chased, closed, made her move, lost the lead, found it again, and on the final lap made a decisive surge that neither Rissveds nor Madigan Munro - who rode the best race of her career to claim third - could match. Rissveds had led every single timing split until the one that mattered most.
Patience, Frei said afterwards, was the key. On a course that punished mistakes and rewarded rhythm, she had more of both than anyone.
Charlie Aldridge's 321 Was Back on a World Cup Podium
World Cup winners earn the right to choose a permanent race number. Charlie Aldridge has worn 321 ever since his breakthrough victory at Mont Sainte Anne, and on Saturday that number was back on a World Cup podium in third.
The entire elite men's podium was aged 25 or under - Lillo, Martin and Aldridge representing a generation that arrived in South Korea and immediately made its presence felt. Cannondale's equipment call was clearly the right one, but Aldridge still had to execute in conditions that were ending races for riders around him.
Third place at the opening round of 2026. The number 321 is going to be worth watching all season.
The Defending Champions Were Both Absent
Two of the biggest names in XCO did not make it to the start line on Saturday.
Christopher Blevins - the defending XCO overall champion - suffered a collarbone injury in training in South Korea during the build-up to the race and did not start. Alessandra Keller withdrew from the women's race before the start, citing fatigue following her Cape Epic campaign.
It is one round of eighteen, and neither will panic. But Lillo and Frei are already on the board, the Under 23 categories were dominated by Valentina Corvi and Nicolas Halter - both of whom led every lap of their respective races - and the 2026 season already has the feel of one being shaped by a new generation ready to take what the established names left behind.
Round 2 heads to Nove Mesto na Morave in a few weeks - we will be there trackside all week, bringing you all the latest!