The first UCI Gravel World Championships outside Europe certainly brought a different flavour to the rainbow jersey race, tucked in a corner of Western Australia where gravel is plentiful but infrastructure is a little more sparse. Though the organisers had already long proven that they could truly cater to the numbers and deliver a world-class race despite the challenges, and in the end, many of the aspects that could have been perceived as pitfalls became positives.
The biggest positive, of course, was the long stretches of gravel roads that unfold around Nannup, which meant the race played out on roads that were more than 80% gravel with plenty of climbing, well over 3,000 vertical metres of it in fact.
These unrelenting gravel roads delivered the first repeat victor in the elite women's race when Marianne Vos (Netherlands) claimed the win on the 125.6km course, while Rosa Klöser (Germany), with number 13, managed to hold on to silver despite having to repair a puncture and suffering a late crash when she was out front with Vos. Such is gravel.
Then in the elite men's race the remainders of the early break of Lukas Pöstlberger (Austria) and Peter Schulting (Netherlands) were swept up on the Folly climb and a group of four ultimately charged to the line for a sprint. That was won by Magnus Bak Klaris (Denmark), who held off defending champion Florian Vermeersch (Belgium) and Connor Swift (Great Britain).
Cyclingnews was on the ground in Nannup watching it all unfold, and here are a few of our key takeaways from two days of charged racing.
A brutal course that delivered
This was always going to be a course like no other; the environment was completely different from the past four World Championships in Europe. Wide open roads, lots of gravel and lots of climbing. Plus, while the distances on the face of it may not have looked that long in gravel race terms, with 125.6km for the elite women and 144km for the elite men, the unrelenting terrain meant it wasn't to be taken lightly.
Between the 3,179 vertical metres of elevation gain in the women's race and 3,713m in the men's race, then the pea gravel, the slippery mud and the constantly undulating nature of the terrain, this was a brutal day out. It was, Vos said to Cyclingnews before the event, a course where the "best riders will end up in front" and it will be a "fair and honest race".
The challenging nature of the course was telling in the times, particularly for the women who on Saturday faced wet conditions that made the terrain even harder work. The women's race was 6km shorter than last year's event in the Netherlands, yet the winning riders were out on course half an hour longer, with a winning time of 4:30:04 for Vos compared to 3:58:16 for Lorena Wiebes in 2025.
The men's elite race, which faced far drier conditions than the women's race, was about 35km shorter in 2026 yet only took 30 minutes less.
Not a home nation winner, but still a home favourite
In the elite women's race, while the fairytale for the home crowd may have been a winning farewell for Australia's Tiffany Cromwell or a flying run from another one of the nation's key gravel contenders, Nicole Frain, but you got the sense that if it couldn't be an Australian, Marianne Vos was the pick that had captured the heart of the community.
Not only is she a rider who is often labelled the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) who had embraced the opportunity to come out to Nannup for this far-flung Gravel World Championships, but she also has made the trip out multiple times before, even when there was not a rainbow jersey at stake.
A "nice letter" from the organisers of the Margaret River Tour last decade started her adventures in the region, and when the same organisers stepped into gravel, first with the SEVEN gravel race and then a World Championships, the Dutch rider's interest was immediately piqued.
Couple her enthusiasm for the region with her quiet but always gracious manner and propensity to make time for fans, and it's no wonder why she was such a popular winner. And after taking her second Gravel World Championships title in Nannup, Vos may perhaps have even more reason to fondly remember this patch of the world so far from home. The prolific world title winner has been good to Nannup, and Nannup has been good to her.
Finally, a gravel specialist wins
Since the UCI Gravel World Championships began, it has been dominated by road professionals, with the one exception perhaps being the win by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in 2022, as back then she was operating mostly as a mountain biker, although one with impeccable road credentials.
Nannup, however, had been expected to be the best opportunity to change that, with a course that was far more akin to what gravel riders tackle in the big races on the calendar than in previous years, which leaned a little more to Classics-style races which tended to suit the road professionals. Add to that the travel distance, with it always being in Europe till now, which gave the European-based road professionals a distinct advantage.
To be fair, the number of big-name road professionals who have jumped into the fray in pursuit of a rainbow jersey has done a considerable amount to raise the profile of the race. Though as the years of road professionals on the top step continued, the sense was that it would be nice to have an actual specialist in the discipline winning the jersey.
That way, instead of being hidden away for all but the very occasional outing, it would be seen out on course month in and month out throughout the discipline's calendar. Plus, it would give the gravel fraternity a sense that there actually was a jersey of their own to aim for, rather than one in name only, where the odds were so far stacked against them that obtaining it felt almost impossible.
Magnus Bak Klaris (Denmark) finally proved on Sunday that a gravel rider could claim the gravel world title, pulling off a huge surprise win as he sprinted to victory against defending champion Florian Vermeersch (Belgium) and Connor Swift (Great Britain), pros for UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Netcompany Ineos on the road, which left him standing on the top step of the podium above the two World Tour professionals.
Now let's see if organisers can deliver another course which delivers a fighting chance for the gravel specialists to be in with a shot to do it again.
'Trained for one race, arrived to another' – Rug pulled out from some riders after late UCI rule change
In a year of qualifiers for Worlds, riders duly followed the rules and raced in the UCI Gravel World Series age-group category to, as instructed, be entered for that same group at the UCI Gravel World Championships . Those who finished high enough then received an invitation to enter, invested in the training and considerable travel costs so they could line up in Nannup on October 10 or 11.
Though getting confirmation of the entry, it seems, and having followed all the rules, wasn't enough, as at the start of October the UCI put out a huge document with rule changes, including this one: "Riders from a UCI registered team of any discipline and any rider who has one or several UCI points in the latest UCI individual world ranking prior to the UCI gravel world championships in any discipline shall only be entitled to compete in the elite category".
It wasn't so much the rule that anyone objected to, but the late implementation.
Several athletes were then told just days out from the race that they had qualified for, that they would now be racing in the elite category. As Garry Millburn put it on social media, "trained for one race, arrived to another".
Peta Mullens was another, who was shifted to the Elite category at the last minute because she had 100 UCI points from the last UCI race she competed in 14 months ago.
"We played by your rules all season. You changed them at the finish line," she said on social media.
In the end, both lined up in the elite races, with Mullens finishing 31st in the elite women's race, while Millburn was 69th in the elite men's race.
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The challenges that become the charm
There was no question that this was a small town the UCI Gravel World Championships was heading to, with a population of under 1,000, and while there were gravel roads on tap, there were some other necessities that did require some working out when it came to logistics, resources and accommodation.
The solutions ranged from turning an oval into a campground, a food truck park to supplement food options, and also roping in the much larger nearby Bussleton to act as a pre-event hub.
They were all so well tried and tested through years of the SEVEN UCI Gravel World Series race, and seemed to function seamlessly. What's more, the small-town nature of the venue meant that instead of the World Championships being held in Nannup, it was Nannup.
The whole town was flooded with bike riders and spectators, the locals fully invested, and really it just seemed like one massive event village. What's more, any available accommodation was packed with cyclists, which did plenty to foster gravel camaraderie.
In fact, the local caravan park camp kitchen, just two minutes from the start line, became a hub where riders from around the world swapped notes on the courses, training and generally were on deck to help out if anyone found they had forgotten some crucial piece of equipment. The small-town vibe was the perfect way to ensure that this wasn't just a gravel race, but a coming together of a gravel community.
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