Val di Fassa Enduro: Pugin's Comeback and Botteram's 0.6-Second Miracle

You design an enduro race to run over seven stages and two full days. Then a weather system arrives from the Dolomites' southern slopes, decides the format, and two of the 2026 season's most dramatic results unfold in condensed form on a single Sunday morning.

Round 3 of the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series in Val di Fassa had its day-two programme reduced by adverse conditions. What was planned as a four-stage closing test was cut — the juniors and elite women raced two timed runs; the elite men got one stage to settle everything. That one stage produced a margin of 0.623 seconds between first and second. And the women's race was decided by a rider who had ranked sixth after the previous day's three stages and then dismantled the field in the mud.

The Women: Pugin Climbs from Sixth

Ella Conolly carried a 3.3-second lead over world champion Elly Hoskin into day two, with Mélanie Pugin in sixth — far enough back that a top-three result would have satisfied most observers. Pugin apparently did not consult those observers.

On stage four, the first of the day's two timed tests, the French rider was in a different category from everyone else on the mountain. She pulled significant time out of nearly every racer on the stage — the gap swings her from sixth into the overall lead, leapfrogging Conolly entirely. Stage five, the closer, confirmed it. Pugin's accumulated time across the five stages she raced: 27:45.099.

Conolly finished second at +17.245 seconds — still a strong result for the series leader, still a meaningful points score, still a confirmation that the stage one lead was not fluked. Winni Goldsbury rounded out the women's podium in third at +20.060, completing an all-British 2-3.

The gap between first and third is 20 seconds across 59 kilometres and 2,633 metres of descent. It is a reminder that enduro results at this level are made in fractions of a second per corner across stages that last twelve minutes and that the difference between sixth place after day one and the top of the podium can be settled on a single morning when the conditions demand it.

The Men: One Stage, 0.6 Seconds

The men's competition entered day two with Calonaci on top after three stages, Rudeau second, and Botteram third — a Netherlands rider whose 2026 season had already tested him in ways that had nothing to do with racing. His team entered the campaign without a bike sponsor; the contract had fallen through just two weeks before the season's first event. He sourced equipment and continued. He has been podiuming.

The weather reduction meant the men's title would be settled on a single timed stage — a format stripped of any margin for error. Calonaci, leading, needed to protect. Botteram, 0.6 seconds behind what turned out to be the decisive time, needed to attack on every corner from the first pedal stroke.

Botteram posted 16:20.199. Calonaci's time was 16:20.822. The gap after two days of racing across the full seven-stage structure: 0.623 seconds. Botteram's win is his first World Cup result of the 2026 season, arrived under conditions that had cut the original format in half, and it cost his team everything in a sense that the results sheet cannot reflect.

Ella Conolly's second-place result keeps her in contention for the women's overall lead — she came into Val di Fassa as series leader and exits with a healthy points score. Pugin's win opens her own title conversation, with rounds remaining in the calendar. On the men's side, the standings bear watching: a single stage can move the margin this dramatically, which means any round ahead is live for anyone capable of a day-two reversal like Botteram's.

For a complete look at the Dolomites terrain that hosted these races and how to ride it yourself, see our Sella Ronda MTB guide for Val di Fassa and the day one Val di Fassa race report.