Hattie and Manitou Take World Championship Bronze

Every Color of Success: Hattie Harnden Takes World Championship Bronze

Gold. Silver. Bronze. Whatever the color, Hattie Harnden and Manitou keep finding their way to the podium. Dorado is Spanish for golden. But apparently nobody told Hattie Harnden it had to be the only color. Just one week after taking her first Elite Downhill World Cup victory in Les Gets, Hattie arrived at the 2026 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy, and added another milestone to an already extraordinary season: Elite Women’s Downhill World Championship bronze. On one of the most notoriously unforgiving tracks in mountain biking, Hattie put together another exceptional run to finish third behind Vali Höll and Lisa Baumann, just 2.046 seconds from the rainbow jersey. With it, Hattie completes something we’re particularly proud of at Manitou. Gold. Silver. Bronze. Every step of an Elite DH podium this season. And a Dorado has been there for all of them.

Hattie and Manitou Take World Championship Bronze

The Black Snake Bites

Val di Sole doesn’t hand out medals easily. Known simply as the Black Snake, its combination of steep gradients, roots, rocks, holes and relentless impacts has made it one of the defining downhill tracks of the modern era. Hattie had already demonstrated her speed in qualifying, finishing second behind Baumann and ahead of eventual World Champion Höll. Come finals, she had to deliver it all again. Her run didn’t begin perfectly. Hattie was slower through the opening portion of the course, but as the track continued downward, her speed began to build. Then came the charge. She clawed the time back through the second half of the mountain and crossed the line more than three seconds clear of the existing fastest time, taking over the hot seat with six riders remaining. For a while, the rainbow jersey was hers to dream about. Eventually Baumann edged ahead by just 0.318 seconds, before Höll produced the run that would secure an extraordinary fifth consecutive Elite World Championship. Hattie remained on the podium in third. Höll won by 1.728 seconds from Baumann, with Hattie another 0.318 seconds behind. World Championship bronze. Another color for the collection.

No Matter the Color of the Dorado

There’s another collection we’ve enjoyed watching develop this season. Silver legs. Black legs. National-team colors. The appearance of Hattie’s Manitou Dorado may change, but what happens underneath the paint doesn’t. At Val di Sole, that means maintaining control when the terrain is doing everything possible to take it away. The Dorado’s inverted architecture is designed around sensitivity, tracking and precise control through exactly the kind of repeated, violent terrain that defines the Black Snake. The objective isn’t to isolate Hattie from the track. It’s to allow her to read it, work with it and carry speed through it. When grip disappears and fatigue grows, suspension needs to keep the wheel working with the ground beneath it. Smooth doesn’t mean comfortable. Smooth means fast. And on the Black Snake, Hattie was very fast indeed.

Gold. Silver. Bronze. Dorado.

There’s something beautifully appropriate about the season Hattie has assembled. We’ve already played with the fact that Dorado means “golden” in Spanish, particularly after her historic victory in Les Gets. But this season has shown that Dorado looks pretty good alongside every medal color. Hattie has now stood on the top, second and third steps of Elite downhill podiums in 2026, culminating in a World Championship medal on one of the sport’s ultimate proving grounds. Different races. Different tracks. Different conditions. Different colors. The requirement from the suspension remains the same: predictable, repeatable performance when the rider needs it most.

Another Piece of an Extraordinary Puzzle

Perhaps the most remarkable part of Hattie’s success is that downhill isn’t the only discipline in which she has demonstrated this level of ability. She came to this chapter of her career already established as one of the world’s finest Enduro racers, including taking the 2024 Enduro World Cup overall title. Now her increasing focus on downhill has produced an Elite World Cup victory and an Elite World Championship medal. That combination says something significant about Hattie. She isn’t simply extraordinarily fast. She’s extraordinarily adaptable. Different disciplines ask different questions of a rider. Hattie keeps finding answers. And that makes her a particularly fitting athlete for Manitou. For decades, we’ve approached suspension in much the same way. XC, trail, enduro, dirt jump, freeride, downhill and whatever mountain bikers decide to invent next all present different challenges. Our job isn’t to make them the same. It’s to understand the physics and make each one perform better.

The Complete Set

Silver has been part of the story. Gold arrived spectacularly in Les Gets. Now bronze comes from the biggest single race of the year, on one of the most brutal downhill tracks on earth. For Hattie Harnden, it’s another remarkable achievement in a season that continues to redefine just how complete a mountain bike racer can be. For Manitou, we’re simply proud to have helped smooth the path. Gold. Silver. Bronze. Whatever the color, Dorado belongs on the podium.