How to watch 2023 World Cup XCO and DH in Canada
Complete schedule and guide to the changes to this year's racing
Photo by:
Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool
World Cup mountain biking has a new broadcaster for 2023 and, along with some big changes in the race format, that means fans have to find a new way to watch from home as Red Bull TV will no longer be airing free live broadcasts. This change comes with some benefits, though, as the new broadcasters, Warner Bro’s Discovery (WBD) are expanding coverage to include more racing.
If you’re in Canada, this year’s racing will be presented on a mix of paid and free services. Along with the 2023 calendar, here is how to watch World Cup XCO, DH and enduro in Canada plus this weekend’s race schedule for Leogang.
2023 World Cup race calendar
The 2023 season is already well underway. Three enduro events and the Nove Mesto XCC/XCO weekend witnessed several Canadian wins and podiums across disciplines and age groups. With WBD’s expanded coverage, more of this racing was free to watch online than in the past. Emilly Johnston’s U23 XCO bronze medal race was broadcast live on YouTube. Jesse Melamed and Emmy Lan’s enduro wins were covered with extensive post-race highlights shows.
The bulk of the cross country and downhill season is still to come. Both disciplines pick up steam through June, building towards a grand finale right here in Canada at the iconic Mont-Sainte-Anne venue in October.
How to watch 2023 mountain bike World Cup in Canada
WBD has the rights to broadcast World Cup mountain biking for the next decade but, since WBD is a huge media empire, coverage is split onto different services depending where in the world you are.
In Canada, racing coverage is split between GMBN Racing’s YouTube channel, Mountain Bike World Series’ YouTube channel and, for elite DH and XC races, GCN+.
Watching the Elite XCC, XCO and Downhill World Cups will require a subscription to GCN+. An annual subscription in Canada is about $65 and does include all kinds of road, cyclocross and other coverage, if you’re into that sort of thing as well.
What is more exciting is that junior downhill and under-23 XCO racing is being broadcast on GMBN Racing’s YouTube, live and on demand. So you can, for example, go back and watch Emilly Johnston’s amazing raceu23 women’s XCO in Nove Mesto right now, for free.
Elite men’s and women’s downhill semi-finals are a new addition to the World Cup schedule for 2023. They are also free to watch on GMBN Racing’s YouTube channel.
For Enduro World Cup fans and the new XCM World Cup series, there’s no live coverage. But both have extensive post-race highlight shows on the UCI Mountain Bike World Series YouTube channel.
World Cup race weekend schedules
With the disciplines, Enduro and XC Marathon, and new formats like downhill semi-finals, the World Cup schedule looks a little different every weekend. WBD mixes and matches which disciplines race which weekends all season long.
Racing in Leogang, Austria includes XCC, XCO, Downhill and Enduro. It will be the first time XC, DH and ERD take place together on the same weekend.
Racing this week starts on Thursday, June 15 with the Enduro World Cup running all day and under-23 men’s and women’s short track cross country (XCC) in the evening. Junior men’s and women’s downhill qualifying starts the day off.
Friday, June 16 includes junior men’s and women’s downhill finals, the weekend’s first live broadcast. There is also elite men’s and women’s downhill qualifying and elite men’s and women’s XCC racing.
Saturday, June 17 is a big day for the gravity crowd. Elite men’s and women’s downhill semi-finals and finals both take place, just hours apart. It is the first year with this new format. It should be interesting to see how racers adapt.
Sunday, June 18, racing switches back to the XC crowd. Under-23 women’s and men’s XCO and elite men’s and women’s XCO events will wrap up the weekend.
