‘Long day, long climbs, and a bit of oxygen deprivation’ provide fuel for five-time Leadville winner Keegan Swenson to achieve Marathon MTB world championship dream

USA’s Keegan Swenson is the first of the elite men to complete the steep ‘hike-a-bike’ section at the UCI Marathon Mountain Bike World Championship in Verbier, Switzerland (Image credit: Shutterstock)

From complete command in Colorado to superiority in Switzerland, this year’s Leadville Trail 100 MTB winners Kate Courtney and Keegan Swenson replicated dominant mountain bike performances on Saturday to earn elite cross-country marathon titles at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships.

The duo recorded the first-ever titles in the marathon MTB discipline for Team USA. It was the second mountain bike rainbow jersey for Courtney, who won the cross-country Olympic (XCO) in Switzerland in 2018. Swenson, who has competed at World Championships for Team USA in three disciplines — MTB, road and gravel — won his first rainbow jersey. He earned a silver medal in the XCO team relay at 2019 Mountain Bike Worlds in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, where he was on a five-rider team with Courtney.

Swenson posted to Instagram on Monday that after his ‘fail’ at Cape Epic in March, he didn’t want to compete in mountain bike races again.

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«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 over-prepared. Showing up each day knowing I was going to be put through the wringer made me quit mountain bikes everyday that week,» Swenson posted about the 2025 Cape Epic, where he placed 19th overall with teammate Matt Beers. Swenson suffered from physical setbacks, including back pain, during the race. «I hated every second of it and decided I was completely fine just being a ‘gravel racer’.

«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. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible.»

After top performances at the first pair of gravel events placed him in a familiar lead at the Life Time Grand Prix, Leadville loomed in August. He remounted his hard tail MTB machine, albeit with drop bars, and won the 161km (100-mile) high-elevation mountain bike race for a fifth consecutive time, nearly setting a new course time that he posted last year.

Swenson told Cyclingnews in June that while the Life Time Grand Prix was his main target for the season, a series he has dominated across three years, the marathon world championships were «on the radar» as well. He returns to the US this week to defend his title at the 40-mile Chequamegon MTB Festival in Wisconsin, the fourth stop of the Grand Prix.

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«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.

«Today, Cole [Paton], Bradyn [Lange] and I dropped into the first descent of singletrack together, which was super cool. I was on my high-post hardtail kind of on the limit a few times following those guys on their duallies [dual suspension bikes].»

Swenson went from fourth place to first place across the opening half of the race, then used the final ascent to distance his rivals, whereas Courtney struck out with home talent Anna Weinbeer after the first time check and soon had a three-minute gap with 25km to go.

Kate Courtney celebrates her victory for elite women at the Val d’Aniviers finish line of the UCI Marathon Mountain Bike World Championships (Image credit: Shutterstock)

The same 125km distance from Verbier to Grimentz was used for elite women and men on Saturday for the marathon Worlds, which suited both US winners for the technical course with 5,000 metres (16,486 feet) of elevation gain. Compared to Leadville, the Swiss course was 36km shorter but packed 1,219 metres of additional climbing into the challenge, including one ‘hike-a-bike’ section of nearly 30% gradient on final ascent of Pas de Lona.

Courtney, who is usually in Europe and South America to compete on the mountain bike World Cup circuit, remained in the US in early summer to recover from a wrist fracture, making her Leadville debut. She not only won, but set a new record time for elite women, 6:48:55, eclipsing the time set in 2015 by Annika Langvad, who was her teammate in 2018 for a victory at Cape Epic.

«This course is crazy. Really, really proud of this one, and really grateful I was able to get it over the line on a clean rider today. It’s a super-hard course. I thought Leadville was hard, this took the ante up a notch,» Courtney told PinkBike at the finish in Grimentz.

While Swenson put in time to his rivals on the final climb, Courtney said it was a precarious final descent with banked time that landed her the victory.

«Just to be at the end of a 4,000-foot climb, hiking, carrying the bike, is such mental torture, honestly. I feel like that’s where I just had to get gritty and make it up,» she said.

«Actually the scariest, or hardest, part of the course was that last descent. I had a tiny sidewall cut, just probably bad luck, hit a rock somewhere and I rode a flat tyre basically from the top to the finish line, which is the most technical descent of the course.

«So it really reminded me things are earned, but they’re also given, so I’m grateful that it worked out in the end.»

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