Evie's Profile

World Champion in mountain bike and Commonwealth Games gold medallist  Evie Richards’ stellar rise on the off-road circuit sees her aiming for her second Olympic Games in Paris in 2024.

A former field hockey player, Richards fell in love with cycling from the age of 16 when she was selected for her first world championships in Norway, and she quickly proved equally adept at both mountain bike and cyclo-cross. , She enjoyed a break-out year in 2015, winning silver at the UCI Junior Mountain Bike World Championships in Andorra.

Richards’ development continued in 2016 when she was crowned world champion at under-23 level after winning the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Belgium. It was a feat made all the more impressive for being Richards’ first cyclo-cross race outside of the UK, and for the fact that she was one of the youngest competitors, at only 18 years old.

That calendar year also saw Richards become a double British national champion at under-23 level in both mountain bike and cyclo-cross, a feat she repeated in 2017. With the women’s under-23 age group of racing introduced in cyclo-cross in 2016, Richards also won the first three titles at that level, between 2016 and 2018.

Success followed throughout 2017. Having started the year by collecting a bronze medal in the UCI Under-23 Cyclo-cross World Championships in Bieles, Luxembourg, Richards won her first elite category cyclo-cross world cup race in Namur, Belgium, where she beat fellow British rider Nikki Brammeier-Harris.

By 2018, Richards was beginning to make an impact at elite level, with one of the highlights of the year coming in the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, where she won silver in the mountain bike cross-country event, behind England team-mate Annie Last. There were also significant victories in the UCI Under-23 World Championships in Valkenburg, Netherlands, where for the second time, she was crowned World Champion in cyclo-cross.

In her final year at Under-23 level, Richards won the UCI Under-23 Mountain Bike Cross-country World Cup event in Snowshoe, West Virginia, USA, adding three second-placed finishes in that series.

Richards marked her step-up to elite level racing with sixth place at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championship in Switzerland in February 2020. She returned to competition in a delayed start to the mountain bike season following the covid-19 lockdowns with an impressive double short-track victory at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.

The delayed Olympic year of 2021 opened with a build into form for Richards with a seventh-placed finish at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Ostende, Belgium, before a third place in the UCI World Mountain Bike series in Nove Mesto set Richards up for her first Olympic Games at the delayed Tokyo 2020 event. In a highly competitive race, Richards finished seventh and she carried the momentum from the Games into the rest of the year, peaking shortly afterwards with a gold medal in the cross-country event at the UCI MTB World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy. This was followed by further wins in the MTB World Cup in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, and Snowshoe, USA, capping a hugely successful year.

Richards suffered a difficult opening to the 2022 season, troubled by back issues and a series of illnesses, and failed to place at any major events in the lead-up to a home Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, just an hour away from her hometown of Malvern. However, she overcame this adversity to win gold for Team England in the cross-country mountain bike event, going one better than in the Gold Coast, and followed this with fifth and 11th places at the world championships at Les Gets, France in the short track and cross-country events, respectively.

More home success followed in 2023, as Richards claimed a bronze medal at the UCI World Championships short-track event in Glasgow, and posted a strong sixth position in the cross-country. This success followed an improved early season, with several top 10 finishes at UCI World Cup rounds and a podium in Leogang, and later in the season Richards went from strength to strength notching up short track success with second place in Andorra and victory in Snowshoe.

So far in 2024, Richards has endured yet more ups and downs. She won the short track event at the opening round of the UCI World Series in Mairiporã, Brazil, but crashed the following week in Araxá, suffering a concussion. Richards will hope to recover fully from her injuries in time to take to the start line in Paris. 

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