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 21-22: 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.
Yeah, I subscribed to TNT for the rugby coverage so this is an unexpected bonus for me.
As someone with NO existing subscriptions to anything media-wise what would be the most cost-effective way to watch the DH/XC (full-replays rather than live)? My mobile is O2, broadband is Virgin – I don’t have anything like Amazon Prime, etc (yes, I am cave-dwelling hermit). I stopped watching after the monthly £7 sub was axed.
Round 7 – error in dates. You got me all excited, I thought they’d changed the DH dates and it now coincided with my summer hol to the Alps! But no, it’s the ENDURO that’s on 14-16 August. DH rd7 is actually 21-23 August according to UCI.
I’d like to see one in person again. Haven’t got the time nowadays to make watching the whole shebang on TV/online financially viable – family, etc. Was fine when it was free (and easy to know where to find the coverage) and I’d watch most races in full, but not with the current broadcasting setup.
Good catch! Amended now. Ta 🙂
What about XCC and XCO? Why is DH only considered ‘Mountain Biking’?
With Evie Richards as a current champion surely we should show some interest?
The ‘masses’ decide what’s interesting to them and while I’ve watched almost every single WCDH race since the Freecaster days I’ve never made it through an XC race.
Good luck to Evie though, whoever she is.
Has anyone above said xc is not mountain biking?,Â
XC can be hit and miss. I think its always worthwhile having something on hand to do while you watch. Sometimes its a dull procession, sometimes there are flashes of good racing interspersed with not a lot, sometimes you can be completely glued to the screen for ninety minutes.
Back when DH was 60 men and 30 women I reckon I was watching a higher percentage of the race in XC. Now pretty much every man and at least 80% of the women in the final are genuine win contenders, I’m watching the shorter DH coverage much more.Â
Anyone know where the replay is available?
Got a VPN if necessary.