Swiss Champions Headline 2026 Swiss Epic

The 2026 Swiss Epic is set to take place from the 19^th to the 23^rd of August in the south-eastern canton of Graubünden. Over the course of five stages, 500 riders in two-person teams will climb 11 000 metres on a 343-kilometre-long route. Newly crowned Swiss Mountain Bike Marathon Champions, Casey South and Anna Weinbeer, are among the favourites for the thirteenth edition, with South racing alongside fellow Swiss Epic defending champion Fabian Rabensteiner, for Torpado Kenda FSA, while Weinbeer lines up alongside Claudia Peretti for KTM Spada Brenta Brakes.

Casey South and Fabian Rabensteiner are the defending champions. Photo by Marius Holler.

Racing on home trails, Casey South and Anna Weinbeer headline highly competitive elite men’s and women’s fields for the 2026 Swiss Epic. The Torpado Kenda FSA man won his second Swiss Mountain Bike Marathon title in June this year, while KTM Spada Powered by Brenta Brakes’s Weinbeer added the European XCM title to the Swiss crown. The national and continental champion is in such a rich vein of form that she has not finished lower than 4^th in a major marathon event this season, and has won every race she has entered since the Swiss championships on the 21^st of June. The Swiss Epic is a pairs stage race though, and the strength of Italian national champion, Claudia Peretti, will have as big an impact as Weinbeer’s over the five days of racing.

Anna Weinbeer was 2nd in the 4Islands Epic, one of only two major XCM races she has not won this year. Photo by Sam Clark.

The five days and five stages of the thirteenth Swiss Epic promise scintillating riding for the participants and thrilling racing for mountain biking fans. Starting in La Punt on 19 August, the route showcases the incredible trails of the Engadin before crossing Alpine passes and valleys to Davos to conclude on the 23^rd of August. In total, the route takes in 343 kilometres of racing, with 11 000 metres of climbing and 11 750 metres of accumulated descending.

Stacked with arduous ascents and technical descents, the Swiss Epic course favours the strongest climbers. Riders who are well acclimatised to the strains of racing over 2 000 metres above sea level and those able to keep their composure on long downhills after strenuous climbs tend to thrive. In 2026, that defines Weinbeer to perfection. Her Swiss Epic teammate, Peretti, won the only UCI XCM World Cup event Weinbeer failed to win thus far this year. This suggests that the KTM Spada Powered by Brenta Brakes combination could dominate the elite women’s race.

Their closest competition could come from 2024 Swiss Epic champion, Tessa Kortekaas, and her new Massi ISB Sport teammate Amanda Bohlin. Kortekaas’ grit and ability to pace her efforts to perfection make her a dangerous rival in any stage race. Though the 2024 Swedish XCM champion, Bohlin is an Epic Series newcomer and will be learning pairs racing on the job in the Alps. Katazina Sosna-Pinelė and Giorgia Marchet have claimed an Epic Series victory already in 2026. The Torpado Kenda FSA team were unstoppable in Croatia during the 4Islands Epic, but the punchy courses of the Kvarner Islands undoubtedly suit their power riding styles better than the long climbs of the Swiss Epic.

Tessa Kortekaas (second) and Amanda Bohlin line up for Massi ISB Sport. Photo by Marius Holler.

Like Kortekaas, Bettina Janas is a former Swiss Epic winner. The German won alongside Adelheid Morath in 2019 and 2022. In 2026, Janas lines up alongside Kim Ames. The Sportograf.com squad are outsiders for a podium place, as are Tanja Priller and Selina Rüegg, of the TZA.Bike by Riap Sport Müller team. The Southern African pairing of Julika Pahl, of Namibia, and Linda Detering, of South Africa, as well as the all-Swiss combination of Larissa Rossner and Michèle Mahrer will be chasing top five places.

A top five is the very least three-time winner and defending champion Fabian Rabensteiner would be happy with. The reigning Italian XCM champion and his Swiss XCM champion teammate, Casey South, won the 2025 title by nearly 5 and a half minutes. The squad they defeated twelve months ago has also returned to Graubünden, this time with reinforcements in tow.

David Valero Serrano added the European XCM title to his Spanish XCM crown in July. Photo by Carles Iturbe.

Samuele Porro and 2023 race winner Marc Stutzmann form part of a two-team Klimatiza Orbea setup in 2026. The Spanish outfit also have Olympic cross-country star turned marathon powerhouse David Valero Serrano and his Portuguese teammate José Dias to call upon. Both Valero Serrano and Dias are reigning national champions in the XCM discipline, and Valero Serrano is also the current UCI XCM World Cup standings leader and the newly crowned European XCM champion.

Up against the firepower of Klimatiza Orbea, Torpado Kenda FSA have the formidable prowess of Gioele de Cosmo and Jakob Dorigoni riding in support of Rabensteiner and South. Torpado Kenda FSA also have the advantage of clear team leadership, while the trails will determine which of the two Klimatiza Orbea teams will be supported by the other. The remaining favourites do not have the luxury of a highly ranked second team.

Wout Allerman and Martin Stošek reunite for Buff BH at the Swiss Epic. Photo by Alyona Blagikh.

BUFF BH’s Wout Alleman and Martin Stošek, the champions of Belgium and the Czech Republic respectively, won the 4Islands Epic in April and are a proven winning partnership. As are the Andorra Epic champions, Stefano Goria and Davide Foccoli, of SCOTT Racing 2. Brothers Nicolas and Lorenzo Samparisi, of KTM Spada Powered by Brenta Brakes, were third in the 2025 Swiss Epic and will be challenging to improve on that result. The ENGADIN LA PUNT team of Fadri Barandun and Andrin Beeli will utilise local knowledge to supplement their climbing competence and daredevil descending.

French XCM champion Axel Roudil-Cortinat lines up for Massi ISB Sport alongside Marti Aran Calonja in a dangerous dark horse outfit, while the D2mont Merida climbers, Hermann Pernsteiner and Filip Rydval, will have to be closely marked on the long Alpine passes. South African XCM champion Marc Pritzen makes his first foray into international Epic Series racing. Pritzen is a two-time FNB Wines2Whales winner, the second with his Honeycomb 226ers teammate Felix Stehli, with whom he also won a stage of the 2026 Absa Cape Epic. South African fans can also look out for Keegan Tullis and Herman Fourie, of CVNR Sports, as well as the Pump for Peace teams. Thabiso Zindela and Tumelo Makae, of Lesotho, line up as Pump for Peace Abashovi, and are higher ranked thanks to the UCI points they have accumulated than their Pump for Peace Trailblazers stablemates, Unathi Nxumalo and Damon Terblanche. Fellow Africans, Daniel Kandagor and Stanley Ngugi, of Kenya, continue Team Amani’s pursuit of European racing experience. Amani’s women’s team has stated their aim as qualifying for a spot in the Tour de France Femmes by 2028. The men’s squad is targeting less headline-grabbing goals, and the Swiss Epic represents another skill and experience-building opportunity. Hailing from the world’s greatest reservoir of middle and marathon distance running talent, it seems only a matter of time and skill development before Kenyans take cycling by storm too.

Lukas Baum is replaced by Lukas Pöstlberger in the Speed Company team for the Swiss Epic. Photo by Sam Clark.

Mountain biking fans will also be excited to see Georg Egger starting the Swiss Epic alongside two-time Austrian road champion and Giro d’Italia stage winner, Lukas Pöstlberger for Speed Company. The popular German team’s most recent Epic Series results include a 2^nd place at 4Islands Epic and a 4^th at the Andorra Epic, both of which featured the classic Egger and Lukas Baum combination. Pöstlberger’s freelance role will be closely watched, and a storming performance by the Rose Racing Circle star alongside the ORBEA Speed Company’s Egger will delight admirers of exciting off-road racing.

The week begins with an 83-kilometre stage, which starts and finishes in La Punt. Stage 1 takes in three major climbs, and a total of 2 650 metres of elevation gain, including the ascent to Lej Alv at 2 545 metres above sea level. The highest point of the stage, and the summit of the last climb, comes 47 kilometres into the day. Thereafter, a long descent on the WM Flow and Foppettas Flow Trails leads into an undulating final 25 kilometres. Victory in La Punt will result in the first CIOVITA leaders’ jerseys of the race and a psychological advantage going into the rest of the week.

To see how Stage 1 unfolds, mountain biking fans can tune into the Swiss Epic’s live broadcast on the Epic Series YouTube Channel here. Daily highlights from the race can also be viewed on the YouTube Channel, and the excitement from the trails of Graubünden will be shared on the Swiss Epic Facebook page and @swiss_epic on Instagram. To find out more, visit www.epic-series.com/swissepic.

Expect exceptional riding at the 2026 Swiss Epic. Photo by Marius Holler.

Previous champions. Photo by Sam Clark.

NC: National XCM Champion | CC: Continental XCM Champion | View the full Swiss Epic Start List here.