Keller held a lead of more than 100 points over closest challengers Anne Terpstra of The Netherlands and Rebecca McConnell of Australia in the women's standings going into the final World Cup leg.

A third-place finish on the eight kilometres course in the Italian resort, featuring eight laps, helped her to conclude the season on an unassailable 1,460 points.

Keller finished the race in 21min 3sec, seven seconds behind the race winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot of France, the newly crowned short track world champion.

Ferrand-Prévot edged out compatriot Loana Lecomte in a sprint finish, with both riders finishing in 20:56.

McConnell took second place for the season on 1,270 after finishing 11^th, while Switzerland's Jolanda Neff, the cross-country Olympic champion, was third overall with 1,249 having finished fourth just behind Keller in Val di Sole.

Terpstra's lowest finish of the season of 38^th meant she dropped to fourth in the standings with 1,214.

Hatherly's time of 22:32 on the 10km men's route was four seconds slower than France's Titouan Carod, but enough for second place.

That ensured he took the overall World Cup title with 1,342.

Filippo Colombo of Switzerland placed second for the season, but was unable to challenge in Val di Sole as he ranked 15^th in 23:02 and finished on 1,156.

Carod rounded off the overall podium with 1,083 after Switzerland's Tokyo 2020 cross-country silver medallist Mathias Flückiger missed the final three World Cups of the season.

He was absent in Snowshoe and Mont-Sainte-Anne with illness, and last month was provisionally suspended after testing positive for the anabolic agent zeranol.

Downhill qualifications were held today in Val di Sole prior to tomorrow's finals.

Austria's Valentina Höll trails Camille Balanche by 119 points on the women's elite standings, but the Swiss leader did not take part in qualifying after fracturing her collarbone last month.

Höll was quickest in qualifying in Val di Sole in 4min 31.753sec.

In the men's race, Andreas Kolb of Austria, fifth for the season, won the qualification race in 3:41.572.

Runaway leader Amaury Pierron of France safely progressed in 11^th place in 3:50.963.

The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season finale is set to continue tomorrow with the downhill finals, and conclude on Sunday (September 4) with cross-country racing in the Olympic format.