2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships: Preview, schedule, how to watch live
Pal Arinsal, Andorra, welcomes the 2024 World Championships in mountain bike with 17 sets of medals on offer from 28 August to 1 September.
Cycling Mountain Bike
The best mountain bikers return to the world stage next week with the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Pal Arinsal, Andorra, to follow on July's cross-country competition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
Hundreds of the globe's top MTB cyclists are entered in 17 medal events across five disciplines, four of which were not contested at Paris 2024.
From 28 August to 1 September, medals will be awarded in the cross-country, Olympic discipline (XCO; men's and women's junior, under-23, and elite categories) and in the non-Olympic events of cross-country short track (XCC; men's and women's junior and elite categories), cross-country relay (XCR; mixed team), electric mountain bike cross-country (E-MTB; men and women), and downhill individual (DHI; men's and women's junior and elite categories).
Preliminary competitions are set to begin on Tuesday, 27 August with the qualifying rounds in the short track events. The main programme begins on 28 August with the E-MTB finals and cross-country team relay.
Find out all you need to know about the competition below.
Stars to watch at Pal Arinsal 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships
Most of the best mountain bike riders will be in Pal Arinsal, with many XCO riders having raced just a few weeks ago at Paris 2024.
The top six from the men's event in Paris, including medallists Tom Pidcock, Victor Koretzky, and Alan Hatherly, will all be in action in the men's elite XCO race in Andorra. Only Paris seventh-place finisher Riley Amos is missing out because the U.S. star is entered in the under-23 category, and athletes cannot compete in more than one age category at a world championships.
Swiss stars Nino Schurter and Matthias Flückiger, Italy's Luca Braidot, Pidcock's British compatriot Charlie Aldridge, France's Jordan Sarrou, and New Zealand's Samuel Gaze are some of the other top names in a stacked field hoping to take home the rainbow jersey.
It is a similar story on the women's side, with the top nine from Paris all racing in Andorra, including podium finishers Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Haley Batten, and Jenny Rissveds. Notably, Olympic champion Ferrand-Prévot has announced that this will be her career's final mountain bike race before switching her focus to road racing.
Hungary's Blanka Vas, who was tenth in the Paris XCO race and also finished fourth in the women's road race, is the highest-placed finisher from the Olympics to not be present, while stars such as Puck Pieterse, Evie Richards and Kate Courtney – who did not race in Paris but were featured in the handover segment from Paris 2024 to LA 2028 – are due to compete.
In downhill, the current World Cup leader, Loïc Bruni of France, as well as reigning world champion Charlie Hatton of Great Britain on the men's side, and women's world champion and World Cup leader Valentina Höll of Austria, enter as the favourites.
UCI Mountain Bike World Championships: What are the short course, relay, electric MTB, and downhill events?
The most recognisable competition at the Mountain Bike World Championships is cross-country Olympic (XCO), the standard event within the mountain bike discipline and the only one of the five currently contested at the Olympic Games. But what about the other four events?
Cross-country short track (XCC) is a variation on that, featuring a vastly reduced lap. In Pal Arinsal, a single lap of the XCC course is 1.1km (0.68 miles), as compared to the XCO course's 4km (2.49 miles).
The cross-country relay (XCR) will see teams nominate six cyclists - one from each XCO age category (men's and women's elite, under-23, and junior) - to compete as a mixed relay team against the other countries.
In electric mountain bike cross-country (E-MTB or E-XC), riders get to use an electric, battery-powered bike. The electric engine will only provide power while the cyclist is pedalling, meaning there is no power output without the rider making an input on the pedals. Batteries cannot be changed during the race.
The E-MTB race will be ridden on a shorter portion of the XCO course.
Another event contested in Andorra is downhill individual (DHI). This is not a straight head-to-head race. Instead, riders start at the top of the hill and aim to be the quickest to reach the bottom of a 1.9-km (1.18-mile) course with an altitude loss of 458m against the clock.
2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, Pal Arinsal: Full schedule
All times Central European Summer Time, CEST (UTC/GMT +2 hours). Schedule is correct as of 24 August 2024 and subject to change.
Legend: XCC – cross-country short track; XCO – cross-country Olympic discipline; XCR – cross-country relay; E-MTB – electric mountain bike cross-country; DHI – downhill individual
Tuesday, 27 August
- 10:30: XCC, women's U23 qualifying
- 11:30: XCC, men's U23 qualifying
- 12:30: XCC, women's elite qualifying
- 13:30: XCC, men's elite qualifying
Wednesday, 28 August
- 11:00: DHI, women's and men's junior qualifying
- 13:30: E-MTB, women's final
- 15:00: E-MTB, men's final
- 17:00: XCR, team final
Thursday, 29 August
- 11:00: DHI, women's junior final
- 11:45: DHI, men's junior final
- 15:45: DHI, women's and men's elite qualifying
Friday, 30 August
- 10:00: XCO, women's junior final
- 12:00: XCO, men's junior final
- 16:00: XCC, women's U23 final
- 16:45: XCC, men's U23 final
- 17:30: XCC, women's elite final
- 18:15: XCC, men's elite final
Saturday, 31 August
- 12:30: DHI, women's elite final
- 14:00: DHI, men's elite final
Sunday, 1 September
- 09:00: XCO, women's under-23 final
- 11:00: XCO, men's under-23 final
- 13:30: XCO, women's elite final
- 15:30: XCO, men's elite final
How to follow and watch the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Pal Arinsal, Andorra
You can follow the action from the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships on the official live timing page.
The elite downhill finals and under-23 and elite cross-country finals on Saturday and Sunday will be broadcast on the UCI's broadcast partners, including BBC Sport in the UK.