After five years, downhill racing is returning to Kranjska Gora Bike Park, a venue with a 20-year history, in cooperation with Tourism Kranjska Gora.
We were also not happy to have a race with a location “to be announced” on the calendar, but we believed in the agreement with the hosts in the new/old stop of Slovenian downhill. Now we can proudly announce: the second race of the 20chocolate Downhill Cup series in 2024 will take place on Sunday, 30 June, in Bike Park Kranjska Gora. This will also be this year’s national downhill championship.
Cycling Slovenia’s organising partner is Kranjska Gora Tourism Board, which has also invited Bike Park Kranjska Gora and the hotel company HIT Alpinea to join the event. In the Bike Park Kranjska Gora, the cooperation will also result in a new downhill course – for the race and then, of course, for the park’s visitors. Sebastjan Zmrzljak, race manager of the races in Trbovlje and Lošinj, including the World Cup, is in charge of both the preparation of the course and the execution of the race in the name of Slovenia Cycling.
Cyclists can expect new things in Kranjska Gora
Luka Vrančič, Acting Director of Kranjska Gora Tourist Board, explains the decision to hold the downhill race:
“We are in the process of preparing a new tourism development strategy for the period from 2015 to 2035. The research we have carried out shows that one of the orientations should certainly include the positioning of cycling as a tourism product with more cycling facilities and well-maintained routes. Cooperation with the Slovenian Cycling Federation would help us to upgrade the product not only in the sporting field, but also in the tourism field. As we wanted to take the first step already this year, when the calendars are already full, we accepted with open arms the possibility to host the national downhill cup race and the national championship together with the Kranjska Gora cable car company and the HIT Alpinea hotel chain.”
The partners are also preparing a rich side events programme for Saturday 29 June. Full details of the weekend in Kranjska Gora follow.
Kranjska Gora Bike Park invites on weekends
The Kranjska Gora Bike Park opened its season at the beginning of the month, for the time being the chairlift operates on Saturdays and Sundays, and will switch to daytime operation at the start of the school holidays on 21 June.
The park has been prepared for the new season by a fresh shaping team, which has upgraded the existing two lines from the top to the bottom station of the Vitranc I chairlift. When the weather is nicer, they will be adding more trails and features. For the latest information, visit them on Facebook and Instagram. See park’s trails on Trailforks.com.
20 years of downhill under Vitranc mountain
This year will also mark the 20th anniversary of the first downhill race in Kranjska Gora. At the end of August 2004, there were two downhill races, a national championship and a Slovenian Cup race, on the same weekend, and in the following years, in addition to the cup races, there were two national championships held in Kranjska Gora (2009 and 2016), a European championship for junior and elite categories, together with masters categories, once for masters only, and five iXS European Cup races (most recently in 2019).
