Preview: 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships

Mountain Biking heads to Andorra next week for the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships.

off.road.cc staff

Aug 19 2024

[Words by Steve Thomas]

Andorra’s Pal Arinsal ski resort is located in the high Pyrenees and is no stranger to hosting great world-level mountain bike races, and is a worthy venue for the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Championship title bouts, which will take place between the 26 August and 1 September.

Nestled between Spain and France, the mountainous and landlocked principality is now home to many of the world’s leading bike racers, including Tom Pidcock and Greg Minnaar, and it is also the home base of the Commencal bike brand.

Pal Arinsal and Vallnord have hosted UCI World Cup races regularly since 2008 and also hosted the UCI World Championships in 2015 as well as the Masters World Championships in 2016 and 17. The tough courses here always make for hard-fought racing, and we’ve seen many great battles fought out here over the years; among the most memorable XCO battles we’ve witnessed was the 2018 World Cup victory by the 43-year-old Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesja, who upstaged Jolanda Neff to take glory in her final season of racing.

Meanwhile, last year’s Downhill World Cup duel between Thibaut Daprela and Greg Minnaar was a real nail-biter, one that finally clipped it for the Frenchman. This time around we expect to see some thrilling racing, with a mix of old hands taking their final flings at rainbow dreams along with a bunch of rising and current stars, and that goes across all of the disciplines.

Cross-country Mountain Bike World Championships

Located in the Pal Arinsal Bike Park racetrack is the twisty and tough 4km loop, which has plenty of tough climbing and some punishing technical sections over roots and rocks. Although it’s a variation on the circuit used for the 2023 World Cup races here, it’s very similar.

This is a course that hits hard on the body and the bikes, and the technical sections are likely to have a serious impact if the racing is close cut, although in past editions the races here have been true slogs of attrition, which often produce unexpected results, and that, naturally makes for exciting racing.

Weather can also be a major factor here, and if it gets wet make this one for the tough cookies with great technical skills and tactical patience.

Elite Men XCO and Short Track

At the last race at this venue, it was the Swiss veteran Mathias Fluckiger who took a hard-fought but chilled and convincing victory in the harsh conditions, with Frenchman Jordan Sarrou and Tom Pidcock duelling it out for the second spot, which went to Frenchman.

Although it’s thought that Pidcock will not line up to defend his title, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if he does turn out at the eleventh hour to make good on last year’s defeat here, in what is effectively his home race, and this would make him an evens favourite for the title.

Both Jordan Sarrou and his French teammate Victor Koretzky are also on great form of late, and both are well suited to this style of course, especially if it gets wet, as is Mathias Fluckiger.

We cannot rule out Nino Schurter here, or anywhere else for that matter. We believe this could be his final season and fully expect the XCO GOAT to give it his all, especially following a relatively disappointing Olympics for the Swiss racer.

It has to be remembered that Nino did upstage his GOAT mantle rival Julien Absalon to take the World title here in 2015, and he was in superb spring form early this year, too – and if anyone can rekindle that magic it’s Nino.

Also, highly likely to be in the fight for the title is South African Alan Hatherly, who is having the best season of his career, while many will also be watching to see if Britain’s Charlie Aldridge can make good on his ever-increasing presence to break through to within grasp of the podium.

For the XCC titles, in addition to, and maybe even slightly ahead of some of the aforementioned, we expect New Zealand’s short track specialist Sam Gaze and German rider Luca Schwarzbauer to be in there at the line, with the latter having a particular liking for the Andorran course.

Elite Woman XCO and Short Track

Following a dominant, and almost clinical, Olympic victory it has been widely reported that Fresh racer Pauline Ferrand-Prevot allegedly hung up her knobbly tyres after the Parisian gold haul, although, however, although she is indeed switching her complete focus fully to road racing from 2025, there is still a chunk of 2024 left to run. She has been training at altitude in Andorra in the run-up to the World Championships. She just announced that she will take the start grid for her world title defence, but she will certainly not have this one all to herself.

A hot favourite for this race, and the XCC title, is the flying Dutchwoman Puck Pieterse, who fell fowl of a puncture in the closing stages of the Olympics, losing her probable silver medal with that. Puck has a particular gift when it comes to courses such as this, especially when it gets wet when her cyclo-cross expertise comes into its own. She also just took her first major road race victory with a stage win at the Tour de France Femmes, so we expect she will be very much on the spot for this race.

Also, in the mix for the title and medals in the XCO and XCC races, we expect to see the American Haley Batten, Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds, and of course, Britain’s own Evie Richards, who went on to win the World Championship and dominate that last world cup rounds in 2021 – after the Olympics. Evie also has a particular liking for the XCC races, too.

Downhill Mountain Bike World Championships

Andorra never disappoints when it comes to downhill racing, there just seems to be something naturally challenging and undeniably true when it comes to all things Pyrenees and their trails. This year’s course will be mostly familiar to the racers, with a 1.9km line dropping some 458 meters.

This is a physical course, where fractions of seconds could decide the medals, as it did last in the World Cup round here. If things happen to get wet, then we can expect a far more unpredictable outcome, so to speak. Following a fairly lengthy pause in the international downhill calendar, and with injury putting out some of the young wildfires of recent seasons, this one is a tough race to call, at least beyond the staples that is, which is where we anticipate the medals to fall.

Elite Men

Those fast Frenchies from just across the border must be the hot favourites for this race – but who, which one of these riders will be the hottest on race day? First up is Loic Bruni, a man who must be counted as the dominant and most consistent male downhiller of the last decade, and one who is rarely far from the podium. Bruni has also been on his usual fine form so far this year, although so far this season his countryman Amuary Pierron has matched his every win, and we can never discount the equally brilliant (on his day) Thibaut Daprela (if he’s there) and Loris Vergier too, and we wait to see the final French selection for the race.

Stepping beyond the possible tricolour dominance is South African Greg Minnaar who cannot be ruled out of the game, in what may be his last World Championships. Last year he just missed the World Cup win here, and this is his current home race, plus he finished third in the last round of the World Cup. This is one race that Greg would surely prize more than any other.

The defending World Champion, Charlie Hatton of Great Britain, has not been able to match his Fort Bill form of late, but hey – the Brits have some serious record in Andorra, and we do have strength in numbers too, so don’t be surprised to see a British rider in the fight for a medal.

Elite Women

There have been some insanely tight finishes in the women’s races here over the years, although this time around the race will likely be decided between the two current dominant figures of downhill racing; Valentina Holl of Austria and Nina Hoffmann of Germany, who finished first and second here in last year’s World Cup round, separated by the narrowest of margins.

That said, running them very close this year is Britain’s Tahnee Seagrave, who has returned to her top form following injury and the associated trauma. Seagrave finished third here last year, and then won her first World Cup round in a while at Val di Sole earlier this summer, making her a good call for at least a medal. Always hot of the heals of the big three is French racer Myriam Nicole, who will also be a medal favourite.