An evening of celebration, to pay tribute to the athletes who represented and brought South Tyrol's colors to the forefront at the World and European Championships in 2025. A convivial moment, an appointment that has been renewed for twenty years, strongly desired by the South Tyrolean Cycling Federation Committee to honor the excellence of their movement and their families, who were also invited to participate in the evening.

The Committee chaired by Paolo Appoloni, backed by the other board members and honorary president Nino Lazzarotto (the initiator of the event), gathered their champions at the Buschenschank Grafhof in Bolzano, with a few justified absences due to the commitments that characterize the daily life of international-level athletes.

During the evening, the South Tyrolean Cycling Federation Committee paid homage to its excellence, among established champions and emerging talents. One of the latter is the under-23 Elian Paccagnella, already world silver medalist in Scotland among juniors in 2023 and this year gold in the mountain bike team relay at the Europeans and silver in the same specialty at the World Championships, not to mention his breakthrough in the World Cup (in short track) at the beginning of the season in Araxa, Brazil.

Applause was not lacking for the indestructible and multi-decorated mountain bike marathon performer Fabian Rabensteiner, capable of leaving his mark even in a not-so-fortunate year in terms of physical setbacks, which says a lot about the tenacity of the biker from Villandro, supported by his colleague Sandra Mairhofer, a professional of all-round effort: for her, in addition to the blue jersey worn at the key events of the international calendar, there was also the memorable victory at the Hero Südtirol Dolomites and second place in the marathon World Cup overall classification.

The downhill specialist Veronika Widmann, a pillar of the blue team, also received well-deserved applause, having conquered the sixth national title of her career among the elite in the recently concluded season.

2025 was another memorable year for track cyclists Matteo Bianchi and Mattia Predomo, justifiably absent like the other blue mountain bike marathon athlete Jakob Dorigoni, the cross-country specialist Greta Seiwald (national jersey in short track in 2025) and Nadine Ellecosta, who in the recently concluded season won her first podium in the Mountain Bike Enduro World Cup.

Bianchi and Predomo together set the new Italian team sprint record at the World Track Cycling Championships in Santiago, Chile, collecting new laurels in the European arena. Bianchi confirmed himself as the continental champion in the standing kilometer, while Predomo won gold at the Under-23 Europeans in the team sprint.

Lifetime Achievement Award to Eva Lechner

The South Tyrolean Committee wanted to celebrate the long and glorious career of Eva Lechner, a true icon of Italian and world mountain biking, of the off-road sector in general given her great experience also in cyclocross. Eva wore the blue jersey for the last time last February at the Cyclocross World Championships in Liévin, France, hanging up her bike after participating in four Olympic Games editions and collecting a long series of medals at world championships.

"She only missed an individual world championship jersey," commented the honorary president of the Committee, Nino Lazzarotto, who lived through the years of glory of the champion from Appiano as the number one of South Tyrolean cycling.

She received a special recognition "for the example and valuable contribution to the growth of our cycling movement". The right acknowledgment to a great champion.