Italy's Arianna Dentis and Sweden's Martin Nilsson both won a WMRA Mountain Running World Cup race for the first time at Rollercoaster 21 in Poland on Saturday 19 September. The race runs through the Beskid Mały mountains and finishes at the Porąbka stadium. It was the fifth and final long-distance race of the 2026 World Cup, which ends in Canada next month. Both winners moved up to sixth in the overall standings.
Dentis led the women's race almost from the start. She was more than 1:40 ahead of American Maya Rayle at the 7km checkpoint and kept pulling away over the repeated climbs and technical descents. She finished in 1:55:03, 3:49 ahead of Rayle. It was her eighth World Cup start of the season, after races at Broken Arrow, Grossglockner, both Vauban events, Vertical Nasego and Trofeo Nasego.
Rayle was second in 1:58:52 on her World Cup debut, and Switzerland's Céline Aebi was third in 2:02:04. Britain had three women in the top eight: Eden O'Dea was fourth, Natalie Beadle fifth and Sara Willhoit eighth. The Americans Rena Schwartz and Alicia Shay-Vargo, Switzerland's Selina Burch and Poland's Izabela Wysłuch also finished in the top ten.
The men's race developed differently. Poland's Maciej Lachowski led at 7km in 31:21, with Nilsson 12 seconds behind. The Swede moved ahead in the second half, on the course's steepest climbs and fastest descents, and won in 1:38:50. He had placed eighth at Trofeo Nasego earlier in the season.
The race for second was the closest of the day. Britain's Finlay Grant was only sixth at 7km but descended well to finish second in 1:41:58. American Paul Knight, who has run under 29 minutes for 10,000m on the track, was four seconds behind him in 1:42:02. Italy's Luca Merli and Slovakia's Pavol Orolin were fourth and fifth, Lachowski was sixth, and Britain's Oscar Subuh-Symons and Andrew Douglas were seventh and ninth. With the long-distance races finished, the overall standings will be decided in Canada in October.