{"id":895769,"date":"2026-09-14T19:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/895769\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T19:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:40:12","slug":"haley-smith-cracks-top-15-at-xc-marathon-world-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/895769\/","title":{"rendered":"Haley Smith cracks top 15 at XC Marathon world championships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haley Smith cracked the top 15 at XC Marathon world championships over the weekend, on a day that saw North American riders swarm the top ranks, but not the podiums, of the traditonally European-dominated event.<\/p>\n

The stunning Dolomite peaks surrounding San Martino di Castrozza, in Trentino, hosted the event. With mountains on all sides, there was plenty of elevation gain, over 4,000m for the elite course of the Mythos Primiero Dolomiti XCM, hosing this year\u2019s worlds, and very little flat ground.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Anna Weinbeer arrives at the finish with time to celebrate. Photo: Newspower.it
\nN.America crowds elite women\u2019s top ranks, but no podiums<\/p>\n

After the dominant showing of Kate Courtney and Keegan Swenson in 2025, the North American\u2019s showed up in force for 2026 XCM worlds. But the Europeans were ready.<\/p>\n

Switzerland\u2019s Anna Weeinbeer escaped from the field to take the elite women\u2019s world championship title. She was joined on the podium by Italy\u2019s Claudia Peretti and Austria\u2019s Mona Mitterwallner.<\/p>\n

The U.S.A.\u2019s Melissa Rollins and Savilia Blunk nearly upset that European dominance, finishing fourth and fifth in Trentino. Deanna Mayles and Hannah Otto of the U.S. follwed in 12th and 13th with Haley Smith putting Canada in 14th.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Seewald leads Keegan Swenson through the Dolomites. Photo: Newspower.it
\nSeewald holds off local pros (and the world) in elite men\u2019s race<\/p>\n

The elite men\u2019s race proved to be a rare off-day for the defending champion, Keegan Swenson. After mixing it up on the front in the early kilometres, Swenson eventually faded back to seventh. Still impressive, but not what the U.S. racer, who rarely finishes off a podium in any race, was hoping for.<\/p>\n

Instead, it was Germany\u2019s Andreas Seewald, a veteran XCM pro, stealing the win from a pair of Italian racers intent on keeping the rainbow jersey on home turf. Gioele de Cosmo and Jakob Dorigoni finished second and third, with Italian racers taking up the entire top five after Seewald.<\/p>\n

Very recently crowned Canadian XC Marathon champion Andrew L\u2019Esperance was the top Canuck in the elite men\u2019s race. With a quick turnaround from Sault Ste. Marie Canadian champs to the Dolomites, L\u2019Esperance finished 47th in Italy. Timothy Carleton finished in 94th position, the final finisher before a solid list of DNF\u2019s in Trentino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haley Smith cracked the top 15 at XC Marathon world championships over the weekend, on a day that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[310131,113108,49,48,635,117923,38787,1700,62722,310132,82],"class_list":["post-895769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-andreas-seewald","tag-andrew-lesperance","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-haley-smith","tag-keegan-swenson","tag-mtb-features","tag-mtb-news","tag-sina-frei","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}