10 days until the World Series kicks off - what happened since February?

Since my first win of the season in La Nucia and publishing my team situation the week after there has been a lot of development, but it was nothing but easy. In La Nucia, I was racing still on my training bike from 2025 which for sure had over 10.000 km in its fibers. The good start into the season helped me to gain new partners for my privateer project 2026 but it was and still is just so much to organize. Additionally, training in the German late winter pulled more and more energy from me and my position in the world ranking was also troubling due to the injury and the two heavy sicknesses last year.

Soon after La Nucia, I had the first promising talks with potential big partners who are now part of my project Sanct Bernhard Sport (sports nutrition) and Avona (bike manufacturer) additionally to a few smaller partners I already had. But I still needed to come up with a good plan to get the best chances for starting at the short track race in Yongpyong in South Korea. So, my coach Fabian Neunstöcklin and I decided it would be best to make the long travel to a series of four individual races within four days in Serbia, the Serbia Epic with two C1 and two C2 categorized competitions. I received my new bike, the Avona Silva, just 4 days before my departure to the event - a completely new bike, new geometry, different components and so many things to test and adapt myself to. But it worked out perfectly! I won all the four competitions, even though I was one of the few riders who did all of them and for the last race there even arrived some new riders who were completely recovered. I made a huge step of 25 positions in the world ranking due to the 180 points I gained in Serbia. A big thanks at this point to the family of Benjamin Krüger for being my support team for the races over there.

Even though Serbia worked out perfectly, it was clear, that I would lose a lot of points again until South Korea, because of my good start of the World Series Season in 2025 in Brazil. Two weeks after Serbia, I found myself back again on P52 of the UCI World Ranking and I needed another race. For making the final step to have the best chances for a short track start in Yongpyong, I decided to race the HC categorized continental series in Drozdovo, Slovakia. Of course I aimed again for a win, as I thought the physical and technical course would suit me well. But during the race, it uncovered, that on that day for me it was just too much steep climbing and elevation demolishing downhills without much flow for my preferred style of racing. In the end, I secured the third place and another 60 points for the world ranking.

Gaining 316 points since the beginning of the season is a huge accomplishment and it would have been very difficult to gain even more, without losing to much training in race weeks. Now, I'm back home from Slovakia and did everything I could to create the best situation for the beginning of the World Series season. The current UCI World Ranking lists me on P51 but crossing out U23 riders ahead and athletes who are not going to participate, I will be in the first short track of the season. On Friday, I will travel to South Korea with the national team and I'm really looking forward to travel again with a bigger group to a race, especially to the World Series. Thank you, German Cycling, for giving me the opportunity to race at the first round of the UCI Mountainbike World Series 2026 and help secure the first points for the Olympic Nations qualification ranking for Los Angeles 2028. 

Also, partner-wise there are still things developing and to be announced in the next weeks. I'm also looking forward to presenting my full concept for 2026 to you soon and to represent all my partners soon at the World Series.