Evie
Richards
United Kingdom
·
MTB
Date of birth | 11 March 1997 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Malvern |
Age | 28 |
Nationality | United Kingdom |
Career start | 2015 |
Disciplines | Mountainbike Cross Country / Cyclocross |
After discovering a love for cycling in 2013, former hockey player Evie Richards made a switch to racing bikes and quickly went all-in on competing. While maintaining a part-time job and attending school during the week, teenage Evie would travel all over Europe at weekends to compete in cyclo-cross and cross-country mountain biking events, culminating at the age of 18 when she won the UCI CX World Junior Championships in Belgium.
In 2017, Evie won her first elite CX World Cup race in Namur, Belgium, and went on to finish third in the U23 World Championships in Luxembourg, following that up in 2018 by winning her second World Championships U23 jersey in CX, as well as claiming silver in the 2018 Commonwealth Games cross-country mountain bike race – the first big result for Evie in the sport she's now one of the world's best in.
With an increasing focus on cross-country World Cup racing from 2019 onward, Evie delivered impressive results in the U23 class, with second-place finishes at the Vallnord, Les Gets and Val di Sole rounds, as well as winning the elite British national title.
2020 saw Evie step up to the Elite Women's class and she made an immediate statement in the World Cup series by winning the XCC short-track race right out of the blocks in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic.
From that point on, Evie has consistently been the rider to beat in the XCC races, winning seven XCC World Cups in total and adding a lot more podium finishes on top of that. She's also the 2024 UCI XCC World Champion, too, after out sprinting the great Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in Andorra to claim the title.
That's not to say that Evie's just a short-track specialist however. Her 2021 UCI MTB XCO World Championships gold medal proves that. In just her second elite season, Evie rode the perfect race as she dominated the rest of the field in Val di Sole, Italy, to become the first British rider – male or female – to win the rainbow jersey in cross-country
She followed that historic milestone win with dominant performances in the final two races of the year in Switzerland and the USA to claim her first XCO World Cup wins and climb to second place in the overall rankings.
Since then, Evie's battled injuries but come back even stronger to develop into a legitimate threat for wins and podiums in any race, any place, as shown by her overall XCC World Cup title and fourth place overall in XCO despite missing a mid-season round in Val di Sole with a concussion.
Even after a gruelling XCO race you'll usually find Richards with a smile
© Fabio Piva/Red Bull Content Pool
Out front and putting put big watts is where you'll usually find Richards
© Fabio Piva/Red Bull Content Pool
Becoming XCC short-track world champ for the second time in 2024
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
There’ll always be space for cake in Evie Richards’s world
© Patrik Lundin/Red Bull Content Pool