Racing starts at 3:30am UK time. Oof. Pass me the the ProPlus!
Saturday Race Day Timetable (UK times)
03:30am-04:00am | Women Junior
04:00am-04:45am | Men Junior
05:00am-06:00am | Women Elite
06:10am-07:45am | Men Elite
How to watch it live
As with all the post-RedBull era World Cups, there ain’t no free streams. It’s pay to view. And pay rather a lot. In the UK the racing will be shown on TNT Sports and HBO Max.
From what we can work out (maybe someone in the comments can help us all out here!) the cheapest price to access TNT Sports is £25.99 per month but that’s commiting to a 12 month contract. Paying month by month is £30.99.
There are other ways to get access to TNT Sports a bit cheaper but they typically involve changing broadband/TV providers. And the price often increases dramatically after you get 6 months into the contract deal. Read the small print. But if your current broadband deal is about to expire it’s certainly worth investigating if you can switch to a provider (BT basically) who offer TNT Sports for effectively about an extra £5 a month.
Personally, my gut feeling is that the ‘best’ no-VPN-chicanery method is going to be paying monthly with no contract. At least that way you can bin it off if you don’t think it’s worth it. Which, unless you like soccer or F1 etc, is a distinct possibility. If bike racing is all you’re going to be interested in watching on TNT Sports, it equates to £185.94 for the six months that the race season covers. And if you’re only really interested in watching Downhill racing, it works out at £20.66 per race.
The things is…
Fortunately/unfortunately (delete as your bank balance dictates) the era of actual downhill mountain bike racing that we are currently is arguably The Best Ever. And now we have the Terrific Trio of previously-Junior Men racers making their debut in the Elites Men racing. Asa and The Alrans should give last year’s duelling duo – Jackson Goldstone and Loic Bruni – something to worry about. And in the Elite Women’s racing we have Vali Holl attempting to make history by winning four consecutive Overall Titles in a row (not even Anne-Caro achieved that IIRC). Not forgetting that Gracey Hemstreet looks like she has the potential to scupper Holl’s plans.
Will there be any replays or highlights afterwards?
Right now, who knows? We doubt there’ll be any free-to-view full-replays but there should be free-to-view highlights videos making an appearance on YouTube etc a couple of days after the event.
WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Series 2026 calendar
- Round 1 / May 1-3: Race of South Korea, South Korea
- Round 2 / May 28-31: Loudenvielle-Peyragudes, France
- Round 3 / June 11-14: Saalfelden-Leogang Salzburgerland, Austria
- Round 4 / June 19-21: Lenzerheide, Switzerland
- Round 5 / July 3-5: La Thuile – Valle d’Aosta, Italy
- Round 6 / July 8-12: Pal Arinsal, Andorra
- Round 7 / August 14-16: Haute-Savoie, France
- Round 8 / September 25-27: Whistler Mountain Bike Park, British Columbia, Canada
- Round 9 / October 2-4: Lake Placid Olympic Sites, New York, USA
Looking forward to this! Fortunately changing from Sky to EETV means that this is all included (and 1/3 of the price we were paying) so by the time you watch MotoGP, F1, Road Racing etc. all as part of the same package it’s not expensive per event at all.
Obviously free would be nice, but for the quality of racing and coverage across all those sports and events I don’t feel short-changed.