Waite showed his consistency to record his fourth top-four finish in five junior men’s finals.
He was conservative at the start but unleashed an outstanding second half of the ride down the dry, rutted track to finish 4.740s from the winner Till Alran (FRA).
He is now second overall, only eight points behind the leader.
There were four Kiwis in the top 12 in the junior men’s final with Waite joined by Jonty Williamson (Palmerston North, Yeti-Fox) sixth, Malik Boatwright (Queenstown) eighth, and Leogang winner Oli Clark (Kaikoura, MS-Racing) 12th.
Stevens-McNab, who had to go through the second qualifying session to make the final, let it rip in his finals performance.
Fourth rider away, he produced his usual lightning start and maintained that pace over the rutted tree roots to move to the top of the standings.
He sat atop of the hot seat as the next 12 riders could not match his time, before he was edged back to fourth overall by the last three rides, topped by Canadian Jackson Goldstone.
Stevens-McNab moves to 12th overall with his third final in five starts this season.
New Zealand’s factory in junior women continued with four Kiwis finishing in the top 10 at La Thuile.
They were led by Rotorua teenager Kate Hastings, who finished fourth in the final, to move to seventh overall after scoring in her last three rounds in her first season in the world series.
Fellow Rotorua rider Bellah Birchall (Team High Country) was fifth, with Queenstown’s Indy Deavoll sixth and Tauranga’s Eliana Hulsebosch eighth.
The Santa Cruz Syndicate rider had set the pace in her run, fastest on the course at that stage, before hitting a tree root and falling.
She recovered quickly to finish her run, to be fourth in the overall rankings, just 20 points off second.
Birchall moves up to fifth and Hastings seventh with five rounds remaining.
-Content contributed by Cycling NZ
