France drops off the Team Relay World Championships start list: full teams and line-ups

The 2026 MTB World Championship in Val di Sole will experience one of its first major races this Wednesday with the Mixed Team Relay (XCR). The event will start at 5:00 PM with 13 teams and 78 cyclists, but it will notably be missing one key participant: France, the reigning world champion, will not defend its title.

The UCI has already published the final start list, and France is not among the participants. Italy, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, and Spain will be present in a race where each team will use six riders, and it will necessarily conclude with a new team dressed in the rainbow jersey. 

The MTB World Championship Team Relay starts at 5:00 PM without the reigning champion

The Team Relay of the MTB World Championship in Val di Sole takes place today and the official list includes 13 teams and 78 cyclists, six per team. Of those 13 teams, 12 correspond to national selections, and the remaining one is made up of Neutral Individual Athletes (AIN).

The significant absence is France, the reigning world champion in Team Relay, which does not appear in the start list published by the UCI and, therefore, will not defend its title in Val di Sole.

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In the Team Relay format, each team presents six riders, and the official list allows us to know in advance the order chosen by each selection, revealing very different strategies.

David Campos will open the Team Relay for Spain

Spain has chosen David Campos to compete in the first lap, where he will coincide with some notable names such as Juri Zanotti for Italy, Ondřej Cink for the Czech Republic, or Alex Junior Malacarne for Brazil.

Not all selections have placed a male Elite in that first relay. The United States, for example, will start with Nicholas Konecny and will reserve Riley Amos for the last lap, while Switzerland will also leave its male Elite, Luca Schatti, to close the race. Spain will finish its six relays with the Under-23 Hugo Franco.

The Spanish order will be David Campos, Marta Cano, Pablo Rodríguez, Estibaliz Sagardoy, Irene García, and Hugo Franco.

The 13 teams and the relay order of the Team Relay World Championship

Among the most recognizable names in the race are Jolanda Neff, Isabella Holmgren, Haley Batten, Riley Amos, Ondřej Cink, Martina Berta, Mona Mitterwallner, or Yana Belomoina, also distributed in very different positions within their respective teams.