The 2026 WHOOP UCI mountain bike world series will open with a first: multi-format world cup racing in South Korea. This marks the series\u2019 debut in Asia for both cross-country and downhill events. And the North American leg will add Utah\u2019s Soldier Hollow to the roster\u2014a venue with its own Olympic pedigree.<\/p>\n
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports announced two new venues this week. They confirmed both have signed multi-year deals to host UCI world cup events starting in 2026.<\/p>\n
Asia welcomes world cup mountain biking<\/p>\n
The season will kick off at Mona Yongpyong in South Korea. It\u2019s best known as a winter Olympics venue from PyeongChang 2018. Now, it\u2019s set to host cross-country Olympic (XCO), short track (XCC) and downhill (DHI) racing. It\u2019s the first UCI world cup DH round in Asia in 25 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time ever we\u2019re bringing the cross-country Olympic format to Asia,\u201d said Chris Ball, vice president of cycling events at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe. \u201cIt\u2019s a venue with proven Olympic credentials, and it\u2019ll connect new fans to the sport right from the start of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Utah steps up for cross-country<\/p>\n
Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah will host XCC and XCO rounds as part of the North American leg. The venue staged the 2024 Pan American mountain bike championships. It\u2019s will host events at the 2034 winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Known for its altitude, open terrain and history of elite competition, Soldier Hollow adds another top-tier stop to the growing World Cup circuit.<\/p>\n
More dates still to come<\/p>\n
The exact schedule for both new venues is coming with the full 2026 WHOOP UCI mountain bike world series calendar in the coming weeks. Ball hinted there\u2019s more to look forward to: \u201cThese new venues show our commitment to growing the sport and delivering the best possible race experiences for riders, teams and fans alike. We can\u2019t wait to share the full calendar.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 WHOOP UCI mountain bike world series will open with a first: multi-format world cup racing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,1700,82],"class_list":["post-37890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-mtb-features","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}