First podium for the 32-inch SCOTT Spark: Colombo takes it into the Top 3 in Lake Placid

The new SCOTT Spark 32 inches has only been competing for a few weeks and has already achieved its first podium in the World Cup. Filippo Colombo finished third in the Short Track at Lake Placid and gave the SCOTT prototype its first major result since it appeared in competition.

Filippo Colombo returns to the podium on the new 32" Spark

Filippo Colombo's 2026 season seemed destined to be one of the best of his career. The Swiss rider started the year regularly among the best and before summer had already achieved, among other results, a third place in the XCO of Nové Město and a second position in the Short Track of Leogang.

But that trajectory came to a sudden halt in early July. Colombo suffered a fracture in his right fibula while training and had to miss the World Cup in La Thuile. The injury did not require surgery, although initially, no specific date was set for his return.

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Finally, the recovery was quick enough to allow him to return in time for the last part of the season. And Lake Placid has confirmed that Colombo is back in front.

The Swiss completed a great final lap in the last Short Track of the last World Cup XCC 2026 and crossed the finish line third, seven seconds behind Martin Vidaurre and also behind Luca Schwarzbauer. But his podium was also marked by the bike he competed on.

First podium for the new SCOTT Spark 32"

Colombo achieved the result on a bike that just a few weeks ago we hadn't even seen publicly in competition.

SCOTT introduced the new generation of the Spark RC 2027 a few months ago, a completely renewed platform that maintains the integrated shock as one of its main hallmarks, but introduces a new inverted swingarm and places much of the suspension kinematics around the bottom bracket area.

On that platform, it seems that the specific prototype for 32-inch wheels has been developed, which we first saw at the World Cup in Soldier Hollow. There, SCOTT directly put a bike into competition that anticipates how far the brand is already working with the new diameter.

The 32" Spark visually retains many of the solutions from the new generation of 29". The shock remains completely hidden and positioned very low in the frame, while the characteristic inverted swingarm passes under the bottom bracket.

What necessarily had to change is the adaptation of the frame to larger diameter wheels. For now, SCOTT has not published the geometry of the prototype nor has it confirmed if it maintains exactly the 120 mm of rear travel of the conventional Spark RC, so important data is still missing to know how much the platform has been modified.

At the front appears another of the pieces that are starring this first generation of 32-inch World Cup bikes: a RockShox SID Flight Attendant prototype specific for 32" wheels. The same fork platform has also been seen in other prototypes developed around this diameter.

The 32" SCOTT bikes already have World Cup confirmation

The Spark we saw on the podium in Lake Placid is still a development bike and its configuration, geometry, or even some of its solutions could change before SCOTT decides what to do with the project.

But this result does represent an important first validation in competition. The 32" Spark has gone from appearing for the first time in a World Cup box to finishing among the top three bikes in an Elite Short Track in just a few weeks.

And SCOTT is not alone in this race. The 32 inches have definitely stopped being isolated experiments. Trek, SCOTT, Thömus, and CUBE have already brought projects to the World Cup, while the responses from several riders in Lake Placid indicate that during 2027 we will see even more brands competing with this diameter.

In fact, Thomus was the first to get a bike of this size on the podium with Alessandra Keller, Trek already managed to get its 32" on the podium with Gwendalyn Gibson, second in the XCO, at Soldier Hollow. And now SCOTT adds its own podium with Colombo.

In 2027 we will see many more models from other brands, but for now, Trek, SCOTT, and Thomus have already shown that the 32" are just as capable of being at the front as the current 29".