Mountain biking is getting more popular.
That’s based on viewing figures released by the UCI recently. The organisation reveals that a total audience of 31.45 million people tuned in to watch over 300 hours of racing, broadcast from the five continents the race series took place in.
The World Cup series was strengthened with new broadcaster’s in TVP (Poland), Rogers Sportsnet (Canada), Ten Sports (India) and Guangdong TV (China).
Cross-country eliminator series gets three dates
For 2012 the World Cup series has a new title sponsor, RockyRoads. The 2012 RockyRoads UCI Mountain Bike World Cup presented by Shimano will feature new discipline cross-country eliminator (XCE), which “aims to keep the mountain bike discipline abreast of current trends,” the UCI comments.
For its first year as part of the mountain bike World Cup, this new format, which sees four competitors race over a lap of around 1km, will be raced in Houffalize (BEL), Nove Mesto na Morave (CZE) and La Bresse (FRA).
The World Cup season gets underway earlier than usual this year, with the kick-off event being hosted by Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, on March 17th and 18th. This World Cup destination is well known to the specialists of the discipline: Pietermaritzburg hosted the World Cup openers in 2009 and 2011, and next year it will be the venue for the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships. What better way to start the 2012 season…
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