The 2024 WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series is about to kick off with two back-to-back weekends of UCI World Cup racing, in cross-country Olympic (XCO) and cross-country short track (XCC) at two venues in Brazil. The action starting on 12 April at Mairiporã, Sao Paulo, is the first of 14 weekends of racing in 10 different countries in the 2024 series.
Six new venues, 10 different countries and 15 weekends of racing! 🙌
— UCI MTB (@UCI_MTB) April 3, 2024
The 2024 WHOOP UCI @MTBworldseries run April to October. 😎
Bring it on! 💥#MTBWorldCup pic.twitter.com/WA1ey0n9ir
Following on from the highly successful new format of the UCI Mountain Bike World Series in 2023, the calendar again features a packed programme: in XCO, XCC, cross-country marathon (XCM), downhill (DHI) and mountain bike enduro (EDR), including E-enduro (E-EDR).
Brazil’s new venues set the ball rolling
First at Mairiporã, then a week later at Araxá, Minas Gerais – two of six new venues in 2024 – we’ll see the established stars and emerging talent putting down their markers in the XC events that take on extra significance in this Olympic year.
The 2023 women’s overall UCI World Cup winner for both XCO and XCC, the Netherlands' Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck), won’t be making the trip to South America, deciding to focus on the road instead (she recently finished sixth in her debut Tour des Flandres - Ronde van Vlaanderen).
In the men's XCO racing, it remains to be seen how the seasoned Nino Schurter (SUI) will start his defence. Meanwhile, in the relentless pace of the XCC events, could German powerhouse Luca Schwarzbauer hold off Frenchmen Jordan Sarrou and Joshua Dubau?
Gravity stars to visit new and traditional venues
Gravity fans will be kept in suspense for just a little longer, with the action starting in early May: it’s DHI at the peerless Fort William, Scotland (3-5 May), followed by EDR at Finale Outdoor Region in Italy, a week later. Both formats then come together on 17-19 May at another new venue: Bielsko-Biala, in Poland.
What form will 2023 UCI DHI World Cup overall winners find for the start of 2024’s action? Will Loïc Bruni be the fastest Frenchman? Could Canadian youngster Jackson Goldstone, even after recent knee surgery and aged just 20, continue his seemingly unstoppable rise to the top? And can any of the fast women interrupt Valentina Höll’s masterplan to hear the Austrian anthem played at every track in the world?!
Can the reigning EDR royalty hang on to their crowns? USA’s Richie Rude topped a super-close Men Elite UCI EDR World Cup in 2023 ahead of Canada’s Jesse Melamed, while Isabeau Courdurier retained top-spot in the Women Elite, despite being pushed all the way by her compatriot Morgane Charre. In 2024, it’s all up for grabs.
Marathon: three rounds for glory
With their consistency, 2023 overall UCI XCM World Cup winners Fabian Rabensteiner (Italy) and Lejla Njemčević (Bosnia and Herzegovina) are the examples to follow… but could we possibly witness a repeat of last year which produced a different winner in every round, in both the women’s and men’s competitions?
The first round of the 2024 UCI XCM World Cup is in Czechia’s legendary Nové Město na Moravě (alongside XCO and XCC racing) across the weekend of 24-26 May. Then there’s racing every weekend in one or more formats in France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, before the second of three UCI XCM World Cups is hosted in Megève, in the French Haute-Savoie region (28-30 June), with XCO and XCC racing in the same area – Les Gets - a week later. The final XCM round of the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Series will be in the USA, in Mt Van Hoevenberg – Lake Placid.
Head west for the Season deciders
In this packed year let’s not forget the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships – featuring XCO, XCC, XCR (cross-country team relay), E-MTB (E-mountain bike cross-country) and DHI – at Pal Arinsal, Andorra, 28 August to 1st September. The ‘small’ matter of the rainbow jerseys soon gives way to the deciding fixtures in the 2024 WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series.
The UCI EDR World Cup will be wrapped up in Loudenvielle-Peyragudes (France), 6-8 September. Then the XCO, XCC, XCM and DHI circuits head west to North America, where another new UCI World Cup venue will be showcased along with one of the true legendary stops on the circuit.
Mt Van Hoevenberg - Lake Placid hosts the final XCM round, along with the penultimate races in XCO and XCC over the last weekend in September. That’s before a fitting finale for XCO, XCC and DHI in Canada’s Mont-Sainte-Anne, the scene of many a mountain-biking drama, on 4-6 October.