{"id":903756,"date":"2026-09-21T06:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T06:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/903756\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T06:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T06:08:10","slug":"cole-punchard-hits-first-elite-world-cup-podium-in-thrilling-soldier-hollow-xco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/903756\/","title":{"rendered":"Cole Punchard hits first elite World Cup podium in thrilling Soldier Hollow XCO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cole Punchard is absolutely flying into the end of the 2026 season. After a stunning third place at XCO World Championships in Val di Sole, the Ontario racer soared as the World Cup series returned to North America. Punchard flew to second place, his first elite World Cup podium, in Sunday\u2019s elite men\u2019s XCO.<\/p>\n

Cole Punchard powers to Soldier Hollow World Cup podium<\/p>\n

Punchard\u2019s road to the podium wasn\u2019t easy. After being caught in a late race crash in Saturday\u2019s XCC, the Cannondale Factory Racing rider had to work his way up through the field on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martin Viadurre (Specialized) takes the win with Mathis Guay (KTM) taking third.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Gwen<\/a>Gibson, Berta and Frei on the podium in Soldier Hollow. Photo: Michal Cerveny \/ Whoop UCI Mountain Bike World Series
\nElite women: Berta doubles up, Gibson rolls big at home<\/p>\n

In the elite women\u2019s race, Martina Berta doubles up, matching her XCC win on Saturday with the XCO win on Sunday. Gwendalyn Gibson (Trek Unbroken) gives the U.S. crowd a podium, finishing second with Sina Frei (Specialized) rounding out the podium in third.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s insane, I can\u2019t believe it,\u201d said Berta. \u201cAfter yesterday, I knew I had good legs, but to do the double is amazing. There are a lot of emotions right now. I\u2019m just so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson\u2019s podium is also the first elite World Cup XCO podium for a 32\u2033 bike. The U.S. racer was aboard Trek\u2019s recently unveiled prototype mega-wheeled race rig in Utah<\/a>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cole Punchard is absolutely flying into the end of the 2026 season. After a stunning third place at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[21898,49,48,62721,635,1700,62722,312564,82,11588,13009],"class_list":["post-903756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cole-punchard","tag-cycling","tag-mtb-features","tag-mtb-news","tag-soldier-hollow","tag-sports","tag-spotlight","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903756","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=903756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}