Park City's Haley Batten will race in front of a home crowd for the first time in her career when the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series arrives at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center on Saturday, Sept. 19 and Sunday, Sept. 20.

It's the first UCI Mountain Bike World Cup ever held in Utah.

The two-day event in Midway will feature elite and under-23 cross-country Olympic and cross-country short track races as the series begins its North American stretch. Warner Bros. Discovery Sports will broadcast the racing internationally.

"It really just brings my two worlds together," Batten told TownLift. "I travel the world racing the UCI Mountain Bike World Series with all my friends, competitors and my team, and I get to bring all of those people to the community that I love and the place that I fell in love with the sport."

Batten won silver in women's cross-country mountain biking at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the best result ever by an American in the discipline. She is also a UCI world champion and Pan American champion who races for Specialized Factory Racing.

A childhood training ground

Batten grew up in Park City, competed in Nordic skiing and spent years training and racing at Soldier Hollow as a youth. She remembers running the stairs near the Utah Olympic Park ski jumps with her Nordic team and has childhood photos of herself doing local race series at the venue.

As we reported July 28, Batten returned to Park City this summer for a five-week training block between World Cup stops. Her 2026 season started in May in South Korea, moved to Europe and will include a World Cup in France and the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships before the Soldier Hollow stop.

After Soldier Hollow, she finishes the season in October in Lake Placid, New York.

A race for the Mountain West

World Cup mountain bike races remain rare in North America, with recent events largely held on the eastern side of the continent. Batten sees the Soldier Hollow stop as a home event for cyclists across the Mountain West, naming Colorado, Montana, Idaho and California.

She raced sparingly in 2025 because of a family health situation, leaving her with fewer UCI ranking points and tougher starting positions this season. She said she is finding momentum.

On KPCW's Local News Hour on July 24, Batten described the course as spectator-friendly, with the layout doubling back on itself so fans can watch from multiple sections. VIP ticket holders can see nearly 360 degrees of the course from the top of the venue's main building.

Olympic venue, Olympic future

Soldier Hollow hosted cross-country skiing and biathlon during the 2002 Winter Olympics and staged the 2024 Pan American Mountain Bike Championships. The venue, managed by the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, is expected to host competition again when the Winter Games return to Utah in 2034.

The UCI and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports announced Soldier Hollow as a World Cup host in 2025.

Tickets and event details are available at ucimtbworldseries.com.