Australia’s new National MTB champion is mixing international road and MTB at 20.
Dominic Geoghegan & ProVelo Super League
Jack Ward took the Australian road cycling scene by storm last year. Whilst he wasn’t an unknown in the peloton, he went from being that mountain bike kid having a crack at road to the man to beat domestically. His stellar 2025 Australian season – winning the Tour of Tasmania on the road and the Elite XCC National Championships on the mountain bike – was rewarded, securing a contract with Lidl-Trek Future (the WorldTour team’s development squad).
Less than 24 hours after being crowned the newest Australian national elite cross-country champion, the 20-year-old is now experiencing the highs and lows of trying to make it on the world stage, both on the road and mountain bike.
Patchy years
Mountain biking has been a part of Ward’s life as long as he can remember, starting off riding with his dad at Melbourne’s Lysterfield Park network. After realising he was consistently passing older kids on his rides, he tried his hand at racing. The choice paid off, racking up numerous national titles as a junior.
The COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 slowed Ward’s racing progress, but he sees it as an escalation in his riding progress. As schooling was done from home, Ward spent his days riding his bike and digging trails in the hills behind his house in Melbourne with his brother Pat and their neighbour, Jarrah Street. The trio were clearly doing something right. Within the next few years, all three would represent Australia, each in different forms of mountain biking.
Ward’s first chance to race in the green and gold came in 2022 when borders opened up, allowing him to race at MTB World Championships in Les Gets, France – something that fed his motivation for international racing. “It definitely got me hooked on racing in Europe,” Ward said. “It’s so different to Australia. Over there, there’s just such bigger fields, and you’re always racing someone. It’s not solo like in Australia.”
In 2023 and 2024, Ward showed a lot of potential, including a win at the OKK Bike Revolution race in Switzerland in 2023, and then joined the renowned Australian Continental road team BridgeLane for a stint on the road in Europe in 2024. But his results never quite led to anything. After a tough debut in the U23 category at Mountain Bike Worlds in 2024, Ward took the pivotal decision to change coaches.
His new coach immediately shook up Ward’s program.
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