pastronef said:
a question: the World Cup is raced by national teams?
the riders have trade teams/ racing teams, or everyone has personal sponsors?
which are the most important races after world cup and world champs /olympics?
thank you
The World Cup is raced by trade teams. It's just the name for the overall competition for the elite DH/XCO racers. It get's a little confusing when they say X has won a world cup then two weeks later Y has won a world cup. I think it's similar in skiing but I'm not sure.
If we are just talking about the pros then they mostly have trade teams, some run their own teams. The sponsors are usually dependent on the team but some things might be different. For instance bike component sponsors are usually blanket across the team but clothing and other individual sponsors might vary for individual riders.
After the World Cup, World Champs and Olympics it tends to be certain national races/Championships. The World Cup calendar is actually quite full now so I don't think you get a huge amount of races outside of it with all the top guys. I'm more familiar with DH racing and in this case you do get other events like Crankworx, Rotorua in New Zealand, Red Bull Hardline, National DH series (top pros tend to only attend if a WC is happening in the country around the same time or it's the mid season break). Some will race the Enduro World Series (non-UCI races) again depending where they are and how they fit.
Mainly though it's the World Cup and World Championships that matter.