Who can keep undefeated champion Annika Langvad from record sixth win? - Contenders for 2025 Cape Epic

From among the mass of 750 two-person teams assembled at this year's 2025 Absa Cape Epic, it is clear that there will be a laser focus on one pairing - Annika Langvad and Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Toyota Specialized). The dynamic duo have six victories and 31 stage wins between them, with Langvad alone holding five overall wins, and in 2025, she has the opportunity to make history as the first rider to win the event six times.

Firmly entrenched as the largest full-service mountain bike stage race in the world, Absa Cape Epic takes place March 16 to 23 in the Western Cape province of South Africa. 

While the Toyota Specialized 'dream team' of Langvad and Villafañe are the overwhelming favourites to set the tone for the UCI pro women's field of 18 teams, there is a log-jam of past champions in the field of 50 men's teams who will be tough to keep off the podium again. 

Three-time Cape Epic winner Matt Beers joins forces this year with USA's Keegan Swenson on the Outride-Toyota-Songa team, and two-time winner Nino Schurter rides with Swiss compatriot Filip Colombo on Scott-SRAM. The German duo of Georg Egger and Lukas Baum (Orbea Leatt Speed Company) raced together in 2022 when they won the overall title. The field includes multi-talented Greg van Avermaet as well to shake things up.

Langvad has not raced Cape Epic since 2019, when she teamed with Anna van der Breggen to collect seven stage wins, and that gave the Dane a sweep of five GC titles in five tries. She joined Karl Platt of Germany and Christoph Sauser of Switzerland as the only athletes to win the MTB endurance event five times and is now set to lift the mark.

Among the elite women looking to upset Langvad and Villafañe is 2023 Cape Epic champion Vera Looser, teaming with USA MTB endurance champion Alexis Skarda for team Efficient Infiniti SCB SRAM. The women's race is wide open as defending champions Nicole Koller and Anne Terpstra (Ghost Factory Racing) switch gears to focus on MTB cross-country events. New Zealand's Samara Sheppard, third last year, is back with a new partner, and look for the new pairing of skilled mountain bike riders Haley Smith and Ella Bloor to contest for stages.

The 21st edition of Cape Epic varies courses each year for the eight days of racing, but what doesn't change is a total distance of more than 600 kilometres and a massive elevation gain of more than 16,000 metres. Dust is a daily companion on the demanding gravel roads and singletrack paths that cross rocky climbs, technical descents, and even pass through rivers and forests of the Western Cape.

All the action from favourites and challengers will be broadcast live each day for the prologue and seven stages on the Cape Epic website and YouTube channel, with organisers boasting more than 38 hours of coverage. There is also local programming available on SuperSport and an official Epic Series app that will provide the live broadcast and live race tracking.

Cyclingnews takes a look at some of the top UCI two-rider teams competing in the eight-day race. 

UCI Women

Annika Langvad and Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Toyota Specialized)

A six-time mountain bike World Champion, five of those in the marathon category, Langvad has amassed 27 stage wins at the South African off-road stage race. She is undefeated on GC in five appearances with four different partners. 

In 2018, she won Cape Epic alongside Kate Courtney, who went on to win the mountain bike world title in cross-country that season. Courtney recently took to social media and described Langvad as "an animal".

After putting her racing career aside for a few years to work in her off-bike profession as a dentist, the Dane is back on the bike and back in a big way. This year at Santa Vall, she swept the two-day stage race for the overall. 

The second half of the Toyota Specialized duo is Villafañe, who comes off wins this spring at Belgian Waffle Ride Arizona and the Trail of Tears gravel race in the US. She will represent Argentina in her fourth appearance at the MTB endurance event, coming off of third place the last two years in addition to an overall victory in 2022 with USA's Haley Batten.

Villafañe's combination of strong mountain bike technical skills and powerful endurance on long gravel events carried her to impressive series wins last year at the Belgian Waffle Ride's Tripel Crown of Gravel and a second consecutive overall at the Life Time Grand Prix series.

Vera Looser and Alexis Skarda (Efficient Infiniti SCB SRAM)

2023 Cape Epic champion Vera Looser returns for a fifth appearance, back for a second time with US marathon mountain bike national champion Alexis Skarda. The Efficient Infiniti SCB SRAM duo finished fifth last year. The Namibia native, who has won 17 road national titles, won last year's UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Cup championship. 

Skarda has raced cross-country mountain bikes for more than 8 years, including setting the FKT record for the 100-mile White Rim Trail and finishing fourth overall at last year's Life Time Grand Prix off-road series. She and Skarda are a formidable duo and return with lessons learned.

Rosa van Doorn and Janina Wüst (Buff Megamo)

Rosa van Doorn and  Janina Wüst may not have taken on the Cape Epic before, but with Van Doorn last month having swept up the Mediterranean Epic and Swiss teammate Wüst having come second in the four-stage event, they have recently proven their form in the format. 

What's more, Van Doorn is coming off a powerful year, having claimed both the Dutch and European cross country marathon championships in 2024, and sits second in the world ranking in the discipline behind Vera Looser, with Wüst next in third. The rankings indicate just how well-matched the combination is, so while it may be a first attempt at the Cape Epic, there seems every reason to expect a successful beginning.

Margot Moschetti and Samara Sheppard (e-Fort)

This may not be a combination of riders that both sit as high on the world UCI rankings, but that doesn't mean that the pairing should be written off, not with the record they have at the race and the power that the pair can muster. Sheppard finished third in her first attempt at the race last year, with the rider from New Zealand forming a powerful pairing with Villafañe. 

It was eighth for Margot Moschetti in 2024, but that season was pegged as a year of rebuilding for the French rider who burst onto the mountain bike scene well over a decade ago and snared World Cup XCO wins in the U23 category. But between injury, an eating disorder, and then having to juggle training and part-time work in the intervening years, the results suffered. Though now, the 31-year-old is able to focus on the sport and has built through 2024, managing to climb to fourth in the world cross-country mountain-bike rankings. If her trajectory continues, this combination could prove a serious threat.

Other UCI women to watch

The South African duo of Bianca Haw and Hayley Preen (Women TitanRacing SE Honeycomb) joined forces when Haw's usual teammate Danielle du Toit could not race due to illness. Preen has finished fourth twice before, including last year, so will pack a powerful punch for stage wins and the African jersey.

It is a debut for both riders in the MAAP pairing of Canadian Haley Smith and Australian Ella Bloor. Both are accomplished mountain bike racers who now perform well in gravel. Smith finished on the Swiss Epic podium in 2018 and since has been a regular on podiums in the Life Time Grand Prix, winning the overall in 2022.

UCI Men

Matt Beers and Keegan Swenson (Outride-Toyota-Songo)

Matt Beers has been a dominant force at his home race in recent editions, and 2025 should be no different. He won his first Cape Epic alongside Jordan Sarrou in 2021 after four earlier starts. 

After a third in 2022, he paired with different US teammates, Christopher Blevins in 2023 and Howard Grotts in 2024, to win two more GC titles. Beers looks to not only win the overall again with another new partner but add to his 11 stage wins.

Grotts had a nasty crash while leading Breck Epic and only one mile to go to claim the win, and has not fully recovered from his extensive injuries, the most significant being a severe concussion. Taking the reins will be four-time Leadville Trail 100 MTB winner Keegan Swenson. 

Swenson and Grotts have gone head-to-head at many gravel races in the US and know each other well. Swenson edged the South African in the final standings of the Life Time Grand Prix last year, the US rider dominant in that off-road series for a third consecutive season. While Swenson has only finished Cape Epic twice and just outside the top 11, he has been focused on the stage race all winter, and the two make a formidable duo.

Nino Schurter and Filipo Colombo (Scott SRAM)

Like Beers, Nino Schurter has 11 stage wins coming into his ninth Cape Epic. A 10-time MTB world champion and nine-time World Cup MTB champion, Schurter also has three medals from three Olympic Games, including the mountain gold from Rio in 2016. After going second at Cape Epic last year, he has selected another Swiss rider to go for the top step of the podium, Filippo Colombo.

Colombo was the highest-placed Swiss rider, seventh, in his only Cape Epic appearance in  2021. The 27-year-old turned his focus on the road for a couple of seasons, riding for Tudor Pro Cycling and then Q365. Pro Cycling, and last year opted to focus on cross-country. The two have been training together over the winter and competed at the Imbuko Big 5 marathon race, with Colombo winning and Schurter going fourth.

Georg Egger and Lukas Baum (ORBEA Leatt Speed Company)

The German duo of Georg Egger and European XCM champion Lukas Baum took out the Cape Epic in 2022, toppling the favourites with their aggressive racing style, and then they returned in 2023 to take second place. The proven pairing, however, were a DNF in 2024. 

The start of the season didn't quite go to plan for Egger, out of the Tankwa Trek with a stomach bug, but if the social media posts are anything to go by, the pairis  looking raring to go, with the travails of the 2024 edition perhaps adding even more fuel to the fire for 2025

Wout Alleman and Martin Stošek (Buff Megamo)

Wout Alleman had originally expected to return once again to the Cape Epic with Hans Becking. a pairing that had secured third overall last year. Though, that plan fell through when the Belgian revealed last month that he had been struggling with illness through pre-season training and told the team he wouldn't have the fitness to fight for the podium at the race. 

A change, therefore, was on the way, with Martin Stosek stepping into the void. The Czech rider last year took on the event with compatriot Petr Vakoč, finishing eighth, but raced the previous two years with Andreas Seewald claiming fifth and also second on debut in 2022. 

The riders as a combination may be an unknown, but with three participations each and a combined two overall podium places and six stage wins, it could well be a formidable pairing.

Other UCI men to watch

South Africa’s best hope of an all-local podium the best part of a decade, Marco Joubert and Tristan Nortje (Imbuko ChemChamp). They have notched up a stage race victoryat the Ford Trailseeker #2 Cradle mountain bike race to start the season, and Joubert has won both events in the national marathon series. 

Among some of the first-time riders, look for 2016 Olympic road race gold medallist Greg van Avermaet and his Belgian teammate Julian Siemons (GAV Gold). The Canadian duo of Rob Britton and Andrew l'Esperance, the reigning MTB marathon national champion, will ride as Team Fox-Shimano-FE and could also surprise other teams on several stages.