As we wrap up the racing portion of 2025, we’re looking back at a banner year for Canadian athletes. Literally. Many banners were brought home by the Canadians. We’re checking our math, but this could be the most mountain bike world championships won by Canadians in a single year.
This was also the year that Canada’s next generation of racer showed their time is now. All but two of the feats on our 2025 best of list came from riders under the age of 23.
Here, in absolutely no particular order (as should be immediately obvious) are the top 10 moments in Canadian mountain biking for 2025.
Cole Punchard waving at the camera
Canadian fans were riveted when Cole Punchard latched onto the lead group at Les Gets World Cup and, then, went to the front to take a pull. When the Cannondale racer passed through the start/finish line on the front, he saw the group was on screen for the live coverage and gave a smile and cute little wave for his family back home. Your first time leading an elite men’s World Cup and you’re thinking about your family back home? Aweeee, what. A. Sweetheart.
The next week Punchard proved that, while he may be sweet as maple syrup, he’s not made of sugar. Back on the front in Lenzerheide, he was caught on camera again, this time rubbing elbows with, and then unrepentantly squeezing out veteran French racer Victor Koretzky to hold his place going into a corner. While the move visibly got Koretzky’s chamois in a bunch, as Punchard later explained, this is racing. You can’t just let everyone through or you’ll quickly be back at the back of the field.
Cole Punchard’s hair (and results)
The Novar, Ont. wasn’t just nabbing TV time for his waves and elbows, though. He was also getting a ton of attention for his… hair. No, wait, for his results. The new Canadian champion made it onto the live feed by racing at the front of the elite men’s field throughout the season. producing really good, career-best results.
Those results include an elite World Cup top-10, made all the more impressive considering he’s racing up from under-23. Then a silver at world championships racing back in the under-23 men’s field. It’s thrilling to see a Canadian man up at the front of a World Cup race again and we can’t wait to see what next season brings. But that flaming haircut, though..
Photo: WBD Sports / UCI Mountain Bike World Series
Gracey Hemstreet winning World Cups and Hardline
Gracey Hemstreet first turned heads with her success as a junior. Her fame turned international when she became the first woman to complete a Red Bull Hardline course. Hemstreet repeated that feat in Maydena in 2025, but she was just getting started.
Hemstreet landed her first elite World Cup win, and Canada’s first elite women’s DH World Cup win, in Loudenvielle. A week later, she repeated the feat in Leogang. Another win in Les Gets cemented the Canadians position amongst the world’s fastest women. It also catapulted the Sunshine Coast racer to a second place overall, finishing behind dominant Austrian phenom, and four-time overall winner (and current world champion) Vali Höll. Very good company for the Canadian’s second season amongst the elites.
Hemstreet was denied a proper grand finale to that points race, though. At Mont-Sainte-Anne, the Canadian was just one jump away from the finish line when her season of highs nearly ended in a low. Hemstreet got off line on one jump and was then sent careening into the crowd just before the finish area. Thankfully the Norco Race Division rider was OK, and we can look forward to another season of highlights from the high-flying Hemstreet in 2026.
Jackson Goldstone, Mont-Sainte-Anne, 2025. Image: Colin Field
Goldstone winning everything (and also Hardline)
Jackson Goldstone made history again this year, several times. Winning four back-to-back World Cups. The second Canadian ever to win the elite men’s overall. First Canadian ever to win elite men’s downhill world championships. And one of a handful ever to win worlds and the World Cup overall in the same year. Oh, and he won Red Bull Hardline Maydena to kick the year off. There’s really not much more Goldstone could have done. Producing that much success while having Loic Bruni, one of the best mens downhillers ever, breathing down your neck? All the more incredible. And doing all that after a season away due to injury? Truly remarkable.
Elly Hoskin races in La Thuile, Italy. Photo: Devinci
Elly Hoskin winning worlds
For her first year in the elite women’s field, Elly Hoskin looked entirely at home. First, she won an enduro World Cup round. That alone would have made her 2025 season a massive success. That’s the sort of thing that in enduro, with its demand of a balance of skill, endurance and experience, can see riders take years to rise to the top.
Elly Hoskin wins enduro worlds and at least a year of washing whites
Then Hoskin took it to the next level and won elite women’s enduro world championships. With that, she kicked off what would be a staggering spree of Canadian world championships wins in 2025.
Isabella Holmgren Mont-Sainte-Anne xcc
Isabella Holmgren repeats her double rainbow
While some Canadians were celebrating their first rainbow jerseys, Isabella Holmgren was busy adding to the pile. The Orillia, Ont. racer took mountain bike world champs as an opportunity to repeat her incredible double rainbow feat from 2024. Winning under-23 short track and Olympic cross country world titles again in 2025 showed the Canadian’s dominance. Not just because she won, but because she’d only returned to mountain biking for a couple weeks after winning Tour de l’Avenir, a prominent youth-focused stage race on the road.
Interview: Isabella Holmgren defends rainbows in Switzerland and races in Rwanda
After jetting off to Rwanda post-mtb worlds for road worlds, Holmgren returned to Canada on time to win the U23 World Cup round at Mont-Sainte-Anne to close out her season. What will we see from the Lidl-Trek / Trek Factory Racing rising star? Who knows, but it’ll probably involve ascending a few more podiums somewhere in the world. And, more than likely, she will be joined here by her sister Ava, as when the latter won the XCC World Cup in Nove Mesto earlier this year.
Jenn Jackson at Mont Sainte Anne. Colin Field photo.
Jenn Jackson finally gets her podium
When Jenn Jackson stepped onto the world championships podium in Lenzerheide, it was the payoff to years of hard work, gradual improvement and a steady, unrelenting climb up the ranks of elite women’s cross country. Bronze in the short track worlds race converted so many so-close moments into very real hardware. And, we’re quite sure, are just signs of what’s still to come in 2026 and beyond.
Jenn Jackson’s 2025: Bigger engine, better fit, best year yet
Add yet another set of elite national titles for the Ontario racer, now living on Vancouver Island and racing with Orbea Factory Team, and you have a very successful year.
Hayden Zablotny, Tomas Genon and Tom van Steenbergen podium at Red Bull Rampage 2025. Photo: Paris Gore / Red Bull Content Pool
Hayden Zablotny wins Red Bull Rampage
Winning Red Bull Rampage is a monumental achievement in freeride mountain biking. Winning it in your rookie year is a staggering accomplishment. That’s exactly what Hayden Zablotny did when he upset the favourites to win the 2025 men’s Red Bull Rampage, including fellow Canadian Tom van Steenbergen who finished third. The last rookie to win Rampage? Brandon Semenuk back in 2008.
With his win, Zablotny joins an exclusive club. Just 10 different riders have won rampage since the first competition way back in 2001. Six of them are Canadian, by the way (Brandon Semenuk [5], Kurt Sorge [3], Brett Rheeder [2], Tyler Klassen, and, the first-ever winner, Wade Simmons).
Georgia Astle goes huge at Red Bull Rampage 2025. Photo: Paris Gore / Red Bull Content Pool
Georgia Astle returns to Rampage podium
While the history of the women’s edition of Red Bull Rampage is shorter, Georgia Astle’s name is already writ large all over it. The Whistler local repeated her result from 2024, taking third place in the Utah desert.
Georgia Astle reflects on her third-place finish at women’s Red Bull Rampage
This latest, freeride, stage of Astle’s ever-evolving career is showing yet another side of the accomplished Canadians skills. From racing downhill to enduro and the variety of Crankworx events to, now, hucking absolutely massive cliffs in Utah, Astle’s showing off her versatility with another fearless Rampage podium.
Ella MacPhee securing an overall XCC spot at Mont-Sainte-Anne World Cup. Colin Field photo.
Ella MacPhee lands World Cup win and XCC overall
Squamish, B.C.’s Ella MacPhee started her year out strong. In Nove Mesto, she won the Under-23 women’s XCO, just days after aiding in an all-Canadian sweep of the U23 women’s XCC podium with Isabella and Ava Holmgren. MacPhee also won the continental championships, winning Pan Am’s in Costa Rica (with Marin Lowe joining her on the podium in second).
Ella MacPhee finds her rhythm ahead of Val di Sole
MacPhee backed that early success up with consistency. When the World Cup season wrapped up at Mont-Sainte-Anne, the Willier-Vittoria riders was back on the podium, finishing third overall in the U23 women’s XCC standings.