Five races between 10th and 15th September will decide the 2024 World Champions and the World Cup winners for 2024; 110 riders from 22 nations will be competing for the medals. They will be joined by a further 73 riders from 18 nations for the Junior championships.
The current individual world champions will all be defending their titles apart from Kaarina Nurminen, Finland, last year’s women’s Sprint champion, and Emily Benham Kvåle, Great Britain, Middle Distance champion. Finland will also miss Marika Hara, who along with Nurminen and Ruska Saarela won gold in the women’s Relay in Czechia last year.
All the leading riders in this year’s CX80 World Cup are entered for this final series of races. The Team World Cup, where four nations – Lithuania, Finland, Italy and Czechia – are within 3 points of each other, will be decided in what promises to be a thrilling men’s and women’s Relay to finish the week.
Standings in CX80 MTBO World Cup can be found here.
The Event Centre is Shumen in north-eastern Bulgaria. The first event is the Sprint, which will be in urban, mainly flat terrain. After that the terrain is mostly forest, with generally good visibility and plenty of paths and tracks of varying rideability, in a mix of flat and hilly terrain with some steeper slopes. The Long race is described as being ‘rough and demanding’. In all the races, riding off-track is allowed.
Options for keeping in touch with progress, and much more detail about the championships, are given in Bulletin 4 – see the event website http://wmtboc2024.eu. Reports and leading results will appear on the IOF website on each day of racing.
Race Programme – times are EEST, Eastern European Summer Time, UTC + 3 hours
Tuesday 10 September, Sprint, 12.00 – 15.30
Wednesday 11 September, Mass Start, 10.00 – 14.00
Thursday 12 September, Middle Distance, 10.00 – 14.00
Friday 13 September, rest day
Saturday 14 September, Long Distance, 10.00 – 15.30
Sunday 15 September, Relay, 10.00 – 15.00