Mud Is Everything #4: Three Days Up a Swedish Ski Slope as Hard Enduro Lands in the North

Last time I did the post-race breakdown on Romaniacs. Afterwards a reader asked me, "So where's the next world championship round?" and honestly, I stumbled. Because Romaniacs isn't a world championship round. I'll get to that later. First, the next race. August 20-22, Orsa Gronklitt, Sweden: Forza Orza. It's the first time the FIM Hard Enduro World Championship has ever been held in Sweden. A world championship flag planted in the Nordics. That alone makes me want the weekend to hurry up. And it sits under a different banner entirely from the Romaniacs I wrote about last time.

Here's where the season stands. After three rounds, Manuel Lettenbichler leads on 88 points. Mitch Brightmore is second on 75, Teodor Kabakchiev third on 68, Ashton Brightmore fourth on 49, and Mario Roman fifth on 48. Thirteen points between first and second. Done so far: Alestrem (France), Lagares (Portugal), Silver Kings (Idaho, USA). Still to come: Sweden, Abestone (Italy), Roof of Africa (Lesotho), Sea to Sky (Turkiye), Hixpania (Spain) — eight rounds across four continents. Thirteen points is one crash and one mechanical. Nothing is settled. What makes this year interesting is that both Brightmore brothers sit near the top. Here's my read: if the two of them start fighting each other for the same podium step, that can work in favor of Lettenbichler and Kabakchiev, who are chasing alone — because the chase splits in two. Five rounds left, and small dynamics like that are what move thirteen points.

Orsa Gronklitt is a ski resort. Steep climbs, forest, ski slopes, rock. A course that sends you up a ski run sounds incredible just imagining it. And I like how the event is built. It isn't only the world championship classes. On the same weekend there's a three-hour lap race that amateurs and elite riders run together. The organizers say they want it to be the biggest enduro festival in northern Europe within five years. I think that shape is right. Not a tower sharpened only at the top, but a world championship that sits on the far end of the same club-racing ground. I race club events on weekends myself, so I know: looking up and admiring doesn't produce the next rider. Only when your own tire tracks are in that same dirt does the climb become yours. A three-hour lap race is also, by this sport's standards, a kind design. In hard enduro proper, simply finishing is difficult, and a first-timer who lines up usually ends the day somewhere out on course. Put a race you can actually complete on the same weekend and nobody goes home empty-handed. I like events built that way.

Now back to that earlier point, and here I'll separate fact from opinion. The fact: Erzbergrodeo and Red Bull Romaniacs are not on the 2026 FIM calendar. Their organizers, Karl Katoch and Martin Freinademetz, launched a separate framework this year called the Hard Enduro World Ranking (HEWR). Modeled on tennis's ATP/WTA rankings, it sorts hard and extreme enduro events worldwide into categories based on field size, national diversity, spectator infrastructure, prize money and race duration, with riders accumulating points across the year. The tiers run from Supreme at the top down to Hobby, and the structure lets organizers climb into higher categories over time. Entries opened on January 1 this year, and the World Enduro Riders Association has welcomed the framework. Katoch has said it is "a supplement to the FIM World Championship, not a competing event." Now the opinion. Right now I find it confusing. There's a real chance the season ends with two different "world's best." But whether it's a new venue like Forza Orza joining the championship or Erzberg going its own way, the root of both is the same impulse: wanting more of this. If it means more mud, I'm not going to complain. First things first — August 20, I'm watching a Swedish ski slope.