Haley Batten Won Olympic Silver for the U.S. Then She Raced a World Cup on the Utah Trails She Knew as a Kid

Haley Batten, the Olympic silver medalist in women's cross-country mountain biking, finished sixth in the cross-country at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, on the weekend of Sept. 19-20, 2026, in 1:17:08, the UCI's results show. Italy's Martina Berta won and Gwendalyn Gibson was second, TownLift reported, and Batten finished 1 minute, 17 seconds behind Berta, on trails she knew from years of Nordic skiing there as a kid.

"Thank you UTAH, it is a dream to race a World Cup at home," she wrote afterward, in a post quoted by TownLift.

She was also 14th in the short-track race that weekend. TownLift reported that she donated a bike valued at $15,000 to Team Soldier Hollow.

Raised in Park City

USA Cycling lists her hometown as Park City, Utah, on its 2026 World Championships team, and the UCI's World Series profile says she was raised in Park City and now calls Midway, Utah, home. Team USA's profile lists Los Gatos, California.

TownLift has reported that she grew up in Park City, did Nordic skiing and spent years training and racing at Soldier Hollow, came through local youth programs and graduated from Park City High School, where she raced on the school's mountain bike team. KPCW has called her a "Park City-based professional mountain biker."

"Utah is such an incredible place to mountain bike," she told TownLift before the race.

She told KPCW what the home race meant: "This is the world that I love, the highest level of my sport," she said, adding that she got "to bring that to the community that made me fall in love with this sport."

Team USA's profile says she won her first national title at 14 and went on to win three as a junior and one in the under-23 ranks. The UCI counts four continental championships, and the Utah Sports Commission lists her as the 2024 American Continental champion in both cross-country and short track.

The silver in Paris

At the Paris 2024 Olympics, on July 28, 2024, at Élancourt Hill, Batten finished second in the women's cross-country behind France's Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, with Sweden's Jenny Rissveds third, the UCI reported.

USA Cycling called it "the best finish in American Mountain Bike history, from a man or woman, since its inception in 1996." Team USA reported that she arrived in Paris as the top-ranked female mountain biker in the world after three World Cup wins that season, and described the medal as the first Olympic silver for a U.S. woman in the event.

"I knew before Tokyo that this was the race I was focusing on," she told USA Cycling. Of the winner, she told Team USA: "It was amazing to see Pauline win here, and the next one's mine." Three years earlier, at Tokyo 2020, she finished ninth.

World titles and World Cup wins

Her World Championships record runs back to 2019. Team USA lists team relay silver in 2019, bronze in both the cross-country and the team relay in 2022, and gold in the team relay in 2024, which the Utah Sports Commission called Team USA's first world title in the event.

Her elite World Cup breakthrough came in Brazil in April 2024, when she won both the short-track race, at Araxá, and the cross-country, her first elite World Cup cross-country win, TownLift and Cyclingnews reported. The Utah Sports Commission lists her as a 2024 World Cup winner in Brazil in both events. The UCI's profile counts 13 elite World Cup podiums, one cross-country win and two short-track wins.

The 2026 season

Team USA reported in 2025 that she fractured her hand in a short-track crash that June, and TownLift reported that she raced sparingly that year because of a family health situation.

She returned to the World Cup in 2026, with 10th place in the cross-country at Lenzerheide, Switzerland, and 11th at Pal Arinsal, Andorra, before the home race in Midway, by the UCI's results. She finished the season 16th in the World Cup cross-country standings.

At the World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy, in late August, she rode the third leg of the team relay and helped the United States to bronze on Aug. 26, then finished 10th in the elite women's cross-country on Aug. 30, USA Cycling reported.

Next

The 2027 World Championships are in Les Gets, France, with cross-country events from Aug. 30 to Sept. 4, 2027, the host resort says. TownLift reported that her goal is the LA 2028 Olympics. She races for Specialized Factory Racing.

She is one of the Utah-raised athletes followed on the homegrown Utah athletes hub.

Key facts:

• Athlete: Haley Batten, cross-country mountain bike, Specialized Factory Racing
• Hometown: Park City, Utah (USA Cycling); Park City High School graduate; lives in Midway, Utah
• Olympics: silver, women's cross-country, Paris 2024; ninth at Tokyo 2020
• World Championships: team relay gold 2024; five medals in all, per Team USA
• World Cup: 13 elite podiums; first cross-country win at Araxá, Brazil, 2024
• Home race: sixth at the Soldier Hollow World Cup, Midway, September 2026
• 2026 Worlds: team relay bronze and 10th in the elite cross-country, Val di Sole, Italy
• Next: 2027 World Championships, Les Gets, France; goal LA 2028