Boulder Olympian and Durango cyclist both complete mountain bike sweeps at GoPro Mountain Games in Vail

Cobe Freeburn still remembers watching one of his idols, Howard Grotts, destroy the Mountain Games cross-country field back in 2017. On Saturday, the 23-year-old kept the tradition of Durango dominance in Vail alive.

“I remember thinking it was so cool to see Howard smash it and win,” Freeburn reminisced after his 62-second victory in the GoPro Mountain Games XCO Mountain Bike Race. “So, it was nice to kind of get that feeling and follow in his footsteps.”

One day after winning the short-track event, Freeburn proved he is king of the distance, too. He bolted from the base of Golden Peak and completed the challenging three-lap course in 1 hour, 30 minutes, 13.5 seconds to lead a Durango sweep of the men’s podium. Kai Lokey (1:31:16.4) finished second and Caleb Classen (1:32:58.5) took the bronze.

Boulder’s Erin Huck also completed the double, backing up her own short-track victory with a 56-second win.

“I love this event,” the 43-year-old Olympian said. “I love the course, I love racing at altitude — of all things that I love about racing, this is it.”

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Michaela Thompson finished 56 seconds back to take silver for the second-straight day.

“It was fun battling with Erin yesterday and then today,” Thompson said. “She just powered up that climb and then was super strong on the descents.”

Siri Krum, 15, of Lakewood, rounded out the women’s podium while Bayli McSpadden was the top local finisher in sixth. Kyle Koenig finished ninth, the best showing for an Eagle County athlete on the men’s pro side.

With the memory of getting passed by Eric Brunner through the tunnel on the final lap of last year’s race still fresh in his mind, Freeburn planned to get to the front early.

“I was like, ‘we’re not letting that happen again,'” he said.

The initial four-person peloton of Freeburn, Lokey, Classen and Emmett McManus turned into a two-person dual after one revolution. Lokey dealt with a late flat quickly, but Freeburn ripped the second lap in 29:20.7, the fastest split of the day by nearly a minute. Confident in his cornering skills, he seemed to increase his lead with every descent.

“It was a bit wet on the road on the first lap and then the downhill was perfect,” he said. “Incredible dirt.”

Huck also took advantage of the hero conditions.

“Since I’ve done this so many years, I know that you have to pass as many men as you can on that first climb,” she said. “And then I just tried to let it go on the downhill and I think that’s where I was able to get a bit of a gap.”

Thompson went into the final loop trailing by about two minutes. Going into the race, she’d visualized the 6.8-mile loops, which climb 1,248 feet — as a series of back-to-back uphill time trials.

“I think the biggest thing was to stay focused and know that hitting each climb at first is going to burn the legs the first 30 seconds,” she said. “But it will come back.”

Thompson, the 2023 Bighorn Gravel champion, was able to make up 38 seconds on Huck, who is going for the triple in Sunday’s road time trial.

“But the priority tomorrow is this guy’s race,” Huck said while embracing her 3-year-old son. When asked how she keeps such a high level these days, the six-time national champion answered honestly.

“You don’t. You target fewer races and you try and put together some big training for those races and then the rest of the time — you can’t do it,” she said. “This is one of the races that I target for sure.”

For Thompson, the weekend provided a good reset after an up and down start to the season.

“All of last week (I) just felt flat,” she said. “I came here and like, things just kind of turned around. I think it’s just the atmosphere and the event is so fun.”

Freeburn will be back in Eagle County soon: he plans to compete at Bighorn Gravel in Gypsum on June 22 before heading to Steamboat the following weekend. Everything is building to his main goal race, the Leadville 100, in August. In the meantime, he’ll log training hours in Durango, where Grotts is slowly coming back from the severe injury he suffered at the 2024 Breck Epic.

“He’s getting better. He’s able to ride a decent amount now,” Freeburn said of Grotts. “He’s been someone I’ve always looked up to.”