World Champs week is here! The region of Valais, Switzerland is hosting the whole circus as the best riders in the world, representing their home nations, battle it out for the coveted rainbow stripes. For us here at Vital, we will of course be paying most attention to the enduro and downhill races, but feel free to talk about the other disciplines too! To set the scene, let's start with the schedule of what awaits.
Note that there has already been a schedule change. Due to inclement weather, the rescue helicopter is unable to reach the high-altitude enduro stages, so the organizers have shuffled things around a bit. What was originally planned to be the 2nd stage will be raced today (Aug 31), with the remaining 5 stages tomorrow (Sep 1). The "Lord of the Rims" stage has also been shortened as the top of that stage is particularly hard to reach with helicopter at even a hint of bad weather.
2025 UCI MTB World Championships Schedule
As a reminder, things are done a bit differently at World Champs, compared to the World Cup. The racers are selected by their respective national federations and represent their home nations here as opposed to their professional teams (although most teams will of course be present to support their riders anyway). For the downhill events, the start order for both qualifying and finals is determined by the latest published UCI individual rider rankings with the top ranked rider starting last. In the qualifying round, the following riders make it through to the finals (and just like in the World Cup, there are no protected riders anymore):
Men Elite: top 80 riders in the qualifying round
Women Elite: top 40 riders in the qualifying round
Men Junior: top 60 riders in the qualifying round
Women Junior: top 20 riders in the qualifying round
(In enduro, the start order is "defined yearly", at the discretion of the organizers).
OK, let the games begin!
Day one enduro practice action:
In case you haven't seen it already, here's the course preview for the downhill - the legendary track of Champery!
Here's a good look at the enduro course, courtesy of Jack Moir, who else?!
Can’t wait to see some sweet one-off paint jobs. And specifically Asa and Anna’s polished bikes. 🤤
Junior Qualies is Friday with finals on Saturday.
Elite qualify on Saturday race Sunday
Enduro World Champs standings after day 1 (one stage):
Elite Men
Elite Women
Junior Men
Junior Women
Just went to the UCI website and it looks like the only way to watch this in the US is through Flobikes. Does anyone have more information?
Probably. Warner Brothers doesn’t hold the rights for Worlds
It's the same every year. VPN is your friend, it's usually free to view on the BBC red button (UK) and I believe it's shown on YT in some countries. If you go for the BBC option just click on "Yes I have a TV licence" and you'll be good as they don't check (ask me how I know? 🤣).
Currently watching the Les Gets XCO race and per Ric, Mathis Azzaro (XCO racer and partner of Lisa Bauman) rode the entire Champery track, including jumps, on his XC bike two weeks ago. I REALLY want to see video of that...
day 2 UCI raw video of enduro
If i remember correctly UCI was to remove the geo-blocking on their youtube broadcast in case someone with rights chose not to broadcast some events. DH rights were/are sold together with a lot of other disciplines and as long as there's no way to get these parties to communicate with each other we're screwed.
VPN it is.
Anyone know WHEN any of the WC races are being shown, whether on Discovery, YouTube, BBC, whatever?
Here is the official "where-to-watch" statement from the UCI (nvm the dates/events info, that's obviously not complete nor up to date):
This is the schedule from the organizers with local and some global broadcasters listed (available HERE). There's obviously already some disconnect between this schedule and reality, as the Enduro will only be on as of 17h30 CET today, and not 08h00 as stated in the schedule- but anyway, it gives an idea. Local broadcasters may or may not choose to show everything live, so you'll need to consult the actual programming of your broadcaster to really know I guess?
30.08 - Castle Ride BCVS
16:50 CET : Red Bull TV & YouTube Red Bull Bike
01.09 - Enduro & E-Enduro
08:00 CET : YouTube UCI (now showing 17h30 CET)
06.09 - Cross-country Marathon
10:00 CET : Rhône TV. (Online, Box Blue TV & Box Net+ (chaîne 55))
06.09 - Downhill
10:55 CET Junior Women: RTS web
11:40 CET Junior Men: RTS web
07.09 - Downhill
10:50 CET Elite Women: RTS / SRF / RSI
12:20 CET Elite Men: RTS / SRF / RSI
09.09 - Cross-country Short Track
17:10 CET Women: RTS / SRF / RSI
17:55 CET Men: RTS / SRF / RSI
13.09 - Cross-country Olympic
10:55 CET U23 Men: RTS web
13:50 CET Elite Women: RTS / SRF / RSI
14.09 - Cross-country Olympic
13:20 CET Elite Men: RTS / SRF / RSI
Here's what I can find on Discovery+ (UK timings) - these should all be ad-free, I believe. Remember, on Discovery+, if you see "TNT Sports 1" (or 2) and "TNT Sports" options, always pick the one without the number - that's how you avoid the adverts.
The XCO category split seems unusual, not certain if that's correct or an error on Disco's part.
If it's not geo-blocked where you are, there will be live action from the EDR World Champs right here in a couple of hours:
UCI refer to HBO Max for me in Sweden but they are not broadcasting this event as it seems. Luckily the Geoblock seems to be removed from UCI's Youtube channel.
What a treat to be able to follow the final stage of the EDR World Champs live! Sure, you could ask for more cameras, and the absence of splits makes it hard to follow the performances in real time, but the broadcast really put you right there as the race concluded and that feels like what the racers are actually experiencing as it happens - hanging out at the finish live, watching the screens. After years of hoping that something like this would become available for enduro, I think this proves that the concept is viable and that you CAN provide exciting race coverage even if it's a minimum of cameras on the one final stage. Speaking of exciting, both the elite men's and elite women's races went right down to the wire, with the lead swapping on the very last stage in both categories. Congrats to Elly Hoskins and Richie Rude, those were amazing performances!
2025 UCI EDR World Championship Results - Elite Men
2025 UCI EDR World Championship Results - Elite Women
2025 UCI EDR World Championship Results - Junior Men
2025 UCI EDR World Championship Results - Junior Women
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A picture is worth a thousand words!
Animal. Races some Enduro, focuses on DH, shows up at Worlds and takes it.
Yeah, super tough season for him. Especially with how the first race went. After that race he was probably like, “ok I know what to do to make it into finals and possibly podium.” And then just gets put through the wringer at every other race.
I do wonder if thing would have been different if they were still taking 60 finals. Would he have made more top ten finishes with one more shot at a race?
Anywho, stoked for him. Total beast to rock up and take the W
Last random thought. Wonder what he’s up to next year? Would be wild to stick with dh and essentially not have the rainbow jersey at most enduro races
Highlights from EDR finals day:
Over under on Neko and Logan getting into a fight in the pits?
The polished bikes look so sick
That made my day, thanks for posting. 🤣👍
pulled out DH start lists here (and included full PDF with all racers in all events)
https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/news/whos-racing-2025-uci-mountain-bike-w…
he's still not as excited as that time he won and was gifted a chainsaw.
What are the DH qualification/seeding rules?
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