With the 2024 UCI MTB World Cup season approaching, here is all you need to know about this year’s Downhill World Cup – the calendar, the teams, how to watch and what’s changed.
Key Takeaways
There are 7 races, with the season kicking off on May 3rd in Fort William, Scotland. Bielsko-Biala in Poland is the only new venue.
The semifinals remain but are raced a day earlier on qualifying day. Junior races are back being held on Elite finals day.
You can watch Junior finals and Elite semifinals live and free on YouTube. Elite finals are only available on Eurosport and Discovery+ (but not on GCN+ anymore)
Race Schedule
2024 UCI Downhill World Cup Calendar
Fort William will provide a familiar, but surely rough introduction to the race season. Les Gets, Lourdes and Lenzerheide got dropped from the calendar.
The Polish downhill course in Bielsko-Biala is still under development. So it remains to be seen what the local trail crew comes up with.
This will be the first-ever World Cup DH race in Poland. So expect the Polish fans to get excited and loud trackside.
In Loudenvielle last year, riders had a chance to preview the track and put up their POV runs. Maybe there’s some kind of test event for that new track again ahead of the race.
Like last year, there are a couple of big MTB events with multiple disciplines racing in the same week – DH races together with Cross Country races and a couple of Enduro World Cup races as well.
How to watch
While the semifinal format remains, there have been changes to the overall scheduling of the race weekend.
Junior races will be held on the same day as the Elite races – not a day earlier like last year.
And Elite semifinals will be raced on qualifying day, a day before the finals runs. So no semis and finals back-to-back on the same day anymore for a marathon session in front of the TV.
Both the Semifinals and Junior races will be broadcast free live on YouTube and the UCI Mountain Bike World Series website. Also available live on Eurosport and Discovery+ live stream apps.
The Elite Finals are only broadcast live on paid networks Eurosport and Discovery+
Riders to watch
With such a deep field and quite the eventful off-season for many teams, here are some riders to watch as we can expect big things from them this year.
As you can see there have been tons of team moves and rider updates over the off-season. Learn where everyone ended up, what’s changed and what stayed the same. Pinkbike got us covered once again.
