While checking on the latest international races using the XCO Data website, we saw that America’s Haley Batten, who won the silver medal in the 2024 Olympics, won a race in Valdivia last weekend.
We didn’t know where Valdivia was located until we Googled it.
We found that Valdivia is in Chile, and it was the site of the strongest earthquake ever recorded, one with a magnitude estimated to have been 9.5, an earthquake that killed over 1000 people, and one that caused tsunamis so big that dozens of people were killed in Hilo, Hawaii.
We checked Haley Batten’s race results for the last two years and found that she hadn’t won a medal at a World Cup race in 2025. We checked her UCI points ranking and found that she’s now ranked 92nd among the top 100 riders in women’s XC racing.
The fact that Haley is racing in Chile and has won an XCC (short track cross-country) race there could be a sign that she’s working on making a comeback this year. We checked the UCI team rosters and found that she is still listed as racing for Specialized.
Here’s Haley’s latest race result, from Valdivia, Chile, as shown on the XCO Data website:
Here are the current top 25 riders in the Elite Women’s Cross-country UCI rankings, as shown on xcodata.com:
Here is Haley Batten’s current UCI points ranking, showing that she’s in 92nd place:
Here are Haley’s results from the last two years, as shown on rootsandrain.com:
Notice that the last five times Haley won medals in World Cup racing were in April and May of 2024, when she took two bronze, one silver, and two gold medals, racing in Mairipora and Araxá, Brazil and Nové Mesto (in the Czech Republic).
Here’s some information about the earthquake in Valdivia, Chile in 1960, courtesy of National Geographic:
“On May 22, 1960, the most powerful earthquake in recorded history—magnitude 9.5—struck southern Chile. Estimates were the rupture zone stretched anywhere from 500 kilometers (311 miles) to almost 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) along the country’s coast. The event was named after the city most affected by the quake, Valdivia.
“The Valdivia earthquake left two million people homeless, injured at least 3,000, and killed approximately 1,655. The economic damage totaled $550 million (more than $4.8 billion, adjusted for 2020 inflation).
“The Valdivia earthquake triggered a massive tsunami that raced across the Pacific. Waves wracked coastal communities as far away as New Zealand, Japan, and the Philippines. In Hawai’i, the tsunami devastated the coastal town of Hilo, killing 61 people.”
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Here’s a post that Haley shared on her Instagram page from the 2024 Olympics, when Haley took the silver medal, with Pauline Ferrand-Prevot taking the gold, and Jenny Rissveds taking the bronze:
For those curious about the other news about the world’s top cross-country racers, here are the results from Christchurch, New Zealand last weekend, as shown on xcodata.com:
