As Breckenridge’s Nico Konecny prepared to race in his first U23 U.S. Endurance Mountain Bike National Championships in Roanoke, Virginia, the 19-year-old rider did not know what to expect. 

Though the professional cyclist boasts numerous national titles, Konecny’s season leading up to the annual championship was anything but smooth.

After opening the 2025 mountain biking season with a series of cross-country Olympic races, Konecny traveled to Fayetteville, Arkansas in March in order to compete in the U.S. Pro Cup. Although Konecny was able to win the cross-country Olympic race on Friday, March 20, Konecny fell off his bike during Saturday’s race. 

The force of the fall resulted in Konecny banging up his knee, sidelining the Lexware Mountainbike Pro Team member for several weeks. As Konecny worked to get himself back to full health, Konecny was blindsided by another speed bump. 

This time, Konecny was plagued with extreme fatigue as well as on-and-off sickness. Training at an extremely high level, Konecny had no clue what was causing him to feel so crummy until he was formally diagnosed with Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV). 

Commonly associated with infectious mononucleosis, or Mono, EBV typically causes extreme fatigue, a high fever, a sore throat and swollen lymph nodes. With his body telling him he needed more rest, Konecny opted out of traveling to Europe for a European World Cup block and rather focused on getting his body in a position where it could compete at its best again.

On top of the knee injury and virus, Konecny also gave himself a concussion on the bike that sidelined him from vigorous physical activity for a period of time. 

“I was off the bike at the start of May and was off of it for pretty much all of May and the start of June,” Konecny said. “… It made it hard mentally to keep the focus going and keep chugging along. That is why sports are hard — if everything went perfect, everyone would do it.”

With his training being interrupted on a fairly consistent basis throughout most of the spring/summer, Konecny entered the national championships wanting to get a hard effort in while having fun racing bikes.

“I got back on the bike about a week and a half before national champs,” Konecny said. “I went into nationals with zero expectations at all in terms of trying to perform. I was just trying to go there to suffer for two races and really fall back in love with the process.”

On Thursday, July 17, Konecny got his first crack at racing hard again, lining his bike tires behind the starting line of the U23 cross-country short track race. For close to 20 minutes, Konecny, rocketed around Roanoke’s Elmwood Park, conquering each lap of the 1.1-kilometer circuit.

As the crowd cheered for the cyclists to keep pushing throughout the NASCAR-esque race, Konecny realized that he had a chance at riding away with his eighth national title if he could hang on through the final portion of the race.

“In the middle of the race I found myself in a good position to make some magic happen,” Konecny said. “… I got hit with the realization that I was there with the front group, I was feeling great on the bike and if I played this smartly, I could make this happen.” 

While Konecny had very little confidence coming into the race, every downstroke of his pedal gave him the boost and reassurance he needed to vie for the national title. As he took the final turn of the course alongside Bear National Team’s Jack Spranger, Konecny sprang up from his seat and started sprinting for the finish line.

Fighting through the fatigue in his legs, Konecny dug deep. Remembering all of the hard moments that he had persevered through earlier in the season, Konecny sprinted side-by-side with Spranger before eventually leaning his bike across the finish line. 

In a race for the ages, Konecny out-lasted Spranger to be crowned the 2025 U23 cross-country short track champion. Spranger followed a few fractions of a second later, with Segment 28’s Ivan Sippy taking third.

“(Sippy) threw in an attack going into the final lap and I just got around him,” Konecny said. “It was all about defending every corner until the finish line. Then it was one final sprint and since I was the first one into that sprint, I had the advantage. It was close in the end, but (I’m) super, super happy I was able to make it happen.”

On Saturday, July 19, Konecny bounced back to compete in the U23 cross-country Olympic race where he was able to place fourth overall. After so much uncertainty throughout the season, the two races meant the world to Konecny.

“It was such a surprising nationals and honestly one of my favorites,” Konecny said. “I had a great time driving bikes. It is a blessing for sure.”

The national title marks Konecny’s eighth of his young career. The decorated athlete now has two cross-country short track national titles and six cross-country Olympic national titles. 

Nico’s older brother, Lasse, also competed at the men’s U23 national championships, but did not have the weekend he was envisioning after winning the Firecracker 50 earlier in the month. Lasse did not finish the men’s short track race and then took ninth in the cross-country Olympic race on Saturday. 

The Konecny brothers will now prepare to conclude the 2025 season with a series of World Cup races in Europe. For a full list of results from the Endurance Mountain Bike National Championships, visit USACycling.org.