Daniel Booker waited until the last possible moment to take an outlandishly dramatic first UCI Enduro World Cup round by less than a second at the 2025 season opener, while Harriet Harnden (AON Racing - Tourne Campervans) proved she’s still the woman to beat with a commanding triumph in Pietra Ligure, Finale Outdoor Region (Italy).
Booker had led only once across the first six stages as first Jack Moir (YT Mob), then Sławomir Łukasik (Yeti / Fox Factory Team) appeared in pole position to take the first UCI Enduro World Cup round of the season. But entering the final stage trailing Łukasik, Booker produced a blistering four minutes of descending to put all the pressure on the Pole who came up short by just three tenths of a second, with UCI Enduro World Champion Alex Rudeau in third.
Harnden enjoyed a much more straightforward route to victory as she picked up where she left off last season despite shifting her focus to the UCI Downhill World Cup in 2025, finishing 24 seconds ahead of fellow Brit Ella Conolly.
Conolly was in contention until the 3.5km Fedeli alla Linea trail on stage five that featured almost 700m of elevation drop and also proved pivotal in the Juniors - Harnden finished almost half a minute ahead and won the final two stages for good measure.
Misfortune hampered two very finely poised Junior races, as overnight leaders Melvin Almeuis and Lucile Metge completed a French double on a UCI Enduro World Cup round featuring a new two-day format going back to the discipline’s more adventurous routes.
0.37 SECONDS: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GLORY AND DEFEAT FOR BOOKER
Having worked so hard to build a lead over Łukasik, Booker and the rest of the chasing pack including surprise struggler Richie Rude (Yeti / Fox Factory Team), Moir threw it all away on the first stage of an unpredictable day two of the men’s race.
Moir didn’t enjoy the same cushion as Harnden overnight having won his brace of stages by an aggregate of 1.3 seconds - Jesse Melamed (Canyon CLLCTV Factory Team) bounced back from a disaster on Isallo Extasy to win Dolcenera - yet was clearly the rider to beat holding a four-second lead over Łukasik.
However, that all went up in smoke on the 1.9km Spillpietra trail within view of the sparkling Mediterranean, as Moir finished a stunning 14 seconds adrift of Rudeau, as Booker took up the Australian standard at the front by finishing as runner-up and moving into first place overall.
Last year’s UCI Enduro World Cup overall winner Rude signalled a return to form in fourth - and he’d finish on the podium in the three remaining stages despite the damage to his chance of winning the round being done on day one - and Łukasik and Ryan Gilchrist (Yeti / Fox Factory Team)’s competitive showings kept them in contention ahead of the all-important stage five.
Fedeli alla Linea catapulted Łukasik back into first as Gilchrist claimed the stage with the Pole putting valuable seconds into Booker and Moir - the latter of whom failed to produce the major resurgence he needed to get back into contention - setting the stakes perfectly for the short, sharp final double-header.
Łukasik was the man to beat on stage six giving himself an advantage of 2.7 seconds over Booker ahead of the finale, which proved once again that the theme of this men’s race was impermanence.
Beginning Armuin half a minute before the Pole, Booker flew down the course with the best time of the day and didn’t have to wait long to find out if he’d done enough - Łukasik crossed the line 33 seconds later meaning he lost out on victory in Pietra Ligure by an agonising 0.374 seconds.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I reckon later on it will, but feels pretty amazing. It was a tough race, two-day races you really had to try and conserve your energy where you could, such long physical stages as well,” Booker said.
“Maybe Saturday I felt a bit stronger but then today I felt like I was holding onto it. To come from behind and win feels amazing. I’ll go for a swim, get some gelato then pack up and get to Poland. Really looking forward to it.”
HARNDEN OUTLASTS CONOLLY AND CHARRE
While Harriet Harnden didn’t have things all her own way on day one, losing out on the opening stage to Ella Conolly (Cannondale Enduro Team), she surged back to hold a comfortable nine-second lead over her compatriot by the end of stage three with Morgane Charre (Pivot Factory Racing) the only other rider within touching distance overnight.
The bulk of Charre’s time loss came on the tough Hiroshima Mon Amour stage that also cost Connolly 12 seconds, and Harnden didn’t let up entering day two as she doubled her lead across the opening two stages.
Only Conolly could hang with the reigning overall UCI Enduro World Cup winner down Spillpietra, before the 27-year-old was decisively shaken off on the longer Fedeli alla Linea.
In the trail area built around the 19th-century Forte Tortagna, Harnden fortified her lead with another nine seconds while behind, the larger gaps between Conolly, Charre and fourth-place Raphaela Richter began to settle the fight for the remaining podium positions.
At only a kilometre in length, stage seven was unlikely to provide large enough time gaps to shake up that order unless a rider crashed, though that didn’t stop Harnden giving it everything to claim another stage win and on her way to securing the Pietra Ligure round.
Richter recorded her best result of the weekend in finishing runner-up on Armuin, within a quarter of a second of Harnden, as Conolly and Charre both finished comfortably in the top ten to confirm their places on the podium.
Another top five finish for last year’s U21 overall winner Simona Kuchyňková capped an up-and-down, but ultimately promising weekend for the CUBE Factory Racing prospect while Nadine Ellacosta (Abetone Ancillotti Vittoria Factory Team) ensured there was Italian representation in the top 10 on home trails.
However, none of them were close to dethroning Harnden, who said: “I wasn’t expecting that, I was just coming for some fun and downhill’s the focus next week. This was just a fun start to the season. I just enjoyed riding my bike, I wasn’t overthinking stuff. It’s nice to know I still have the feeling of how to race Enduro and I’ve not lost it over the winter.
“After yesterday I wasn’t sure, it was still super tight. Nine seconds can go in a flash but then after I started riding good this morning I was pretty confident I was in a good place.”
ALMEUIS AND METGE HOLD OFF DETERMINED CHALLENGERS
The Men’s Junior race was the tightest of all, heading into day two in Pietra Ligure, Finale Outdoor Region as Melvin Almeuis led Gabriel Sainthuile by just 0.336 seconds after three incredibly tight stages produced three different winners with New Zealand’s Cooper Millwood also getting in on the action.
Millwood was the first rider to lay down a marker on Spillpietra, winning by five seconds from Almeuis while Sainthuile dropped his biggest chunk of time in the round so far, hemorrhaging four seconds to the overall leader.
As was a theme in Italy though, Fedeli alla Linea was the critical stage as Almeuis stamped his authority on the competition. A mechanical for Sainthuile contributed to him losing 12 minutes and dropping him to dead last while time gaps to the riders who did have a clean run also exploded - Almeuis took his second stage win 19 seconds ahead of Millwood with Italy’s Matteo Falcini (Abetone Ancillotti Vittoria Factory Team) the only other rider within a minute of the domineering Frenchman.
Millwood took the final two stages by a second and three to secure his runner-up spot but was never a threat to Almeuis overall, while the sailing was even plainer for fellow French junior Lucile Metge in the Women’s Junior race.
Metge bounced back from defeat on Isallo Extasy to finish day one with a two-second advantage over Elise Porta (Lapierre Gravity Collective), and that gap barely changed on stages four and five as the pair picked up a win each by the narrowest of margins.
However, Porta unravelled on stage six as Chloe Bear (Yeti / Fox Factory Team) led the consistent Metge and Porta failed to finish on Armuin marking a disappointing end to such an enthralling tussle that promoted Lacey Adams (Yeti / Fox Factory Team) to second overall and Bear onto the podium.
That rounded out a successful curtain-raiser for the European WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series leg of the season that also saw the Enduro Open races held on Saturday in Pietra Ligure, featuring 205 participants across various categories, including both Enduro and E-enduro.
Metge, Almeuis, Harnden and Booker don’t get much time to celebrate though with the Pietra Ligure competition kicking off a run of five WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series rounds on consecutive weekends. Next week, the Enduro Trails of Bielsko-Biała sees the first Gravity double-header of the season as Enduro returns on 17 May, before the UCI Downhill World Cup opener takes centre stage on 18 May in Poland.
