- Midway resident Keegan Swenson won the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Switzerland Saturday.
- It followed a disappointing finish in South Africa that nearly led to him giving up the sport.
- Swenson's victory marked the first men's marathon title for the U.S. in the event.
GRIMENTZ, Switzerland — Midway resident Keegan Swenson just about gave up mountain bike racing after a disappointing finish at the Cape Epic in South Africa this past spring.
He's now glad he didn't.
Swenson, 31, won the cross-country marathon at the 2025 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Switzerland last weekend. He crossed the finish line in 6:01:44 after a grueling 77.7-mile ride from Verbier to Grimentz, with various hike-a-bike sections and 16,404 feet of climbing through high-altitude terrain.
His win, coupled with Kate Courtney's victory on the women's side, represent the first-ever titles in the marathon mountain biking discipline for the United States.
It was the second mountain bike world champion's rainbow jersey for Courtney, who won the cross-country Olympic in Switzerland in 2018. Swenson, who has competed at World Championships for Team USA in three disciplines — mountain, road and gravel — won his first rainbow jersey.
"Today, I pulled on the rainbow jersey for the second time in my career — this time in the marathon discipline," Courtney wrote on Instagram, noting she rode the last 20 minutes of the race on a flat tire. "This was one of the hardest and most unexpected races of my career."
It might be unexpected for Swenson as well. He had decided to confine himself to gravel bike racing after he and a teammate finished 12th in South Africa in March.
"After my epic cape epic fail this spring, I told myself I was done racing mountain bikes. I came into it as ready as ever and was prepared to win, turns out I was likely a bit overprepared. Showing up each day knowing I was going to be put through the ringer made me quit mountain bikes every day that week. I hated every second of it and decided I was completely fine just being a 'gravel racer,'" Swenson posted on Instagram after Saturday's race.
"But as time went on, I realized I wasn't done with mountain biking and that this year's marathon MTB course was one that suited my strengths: A long day, long climbs, and a bit of oxygen deprivation. So I turned that sadness and frustration over Epic into fuel to lock in, get to work and chase that lifelong dream of winning a world title on the mountain bike."
In August, Swenson won the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race for the fifth consecutive time riding a mountain bike with drop handle bars that are typical of gravel bikes. He told Cyclingnews in June that while the Life Time Grand Prix was his main target for the season, a series he has dominated for three years, the marathon world championships were "on the radar" as well.
"It feels good. I mean, this was a big one for me this year. Kind of lined up well with the course being kind of similar to Leadville and the timing not too long after," Swenson said on "The Cooldown Show," which he co-hosts with Life Time competitor Alexey Vermeulen, per Cyclingnews.
In Switzerland, Swenson sat in fourth place through the first two checkpoints. He moved up to third by the third checkpoint and then first by the fourth checkpoint. He held the lead at the sixth checkpoint, using the final ascent to distance his rivals to finish.
