The 2026 World Supercross Championship opened exactly the way the series was sold: short, chaotic, and completely unscripted. By the end of the night in Calgary, the defending SX1 champion had scored two points, a fill-in rider was standing on the podium, the new title favorite had won a GP without the final race even finishing — and the Alberta sky had turned McMahon Stadium into a scene from a disaster movie.
SX1: Webb Wins a Race the Weather Ended
Cooper Webb's Rick Ware Racing debut could not have gone much better — still aboard his familiar Star Racing Yamaha, he took the overall in his first race as a full-season WSX rider. But it took a strange road to get there. Justin Hill, fastest all day in practice and qualifying, won Sprint Race 1 after defending champ Jason Anderson crashed out on the opening lap. Webb worked past traffic into second and held off Dean Wilson — the Savatgy fill-in delivering exactly the ride the team hoped for.
Sprint Race 2 was the Webb masterclass: a controlled, tight-lined, textbook ride to the win while Hill fell on the opening lap and clawed back to fifth, sandwiched by Wilson and Mitchell Harrison in the process. Jorge Zaragoza quietly banked a second place that announced him as a real player in this series.
Then came the main event. Webb was leading when the wind started moving tuff blocks across the track. Yellow flags came out, the gusts intensified, and the FIM red-flagged the race with rider and spectator safety in mind — followed shortly by a torrential downpour that ended any hope of a restart. With the main abandoned, the sprint results decided the GP: Webb the winner, Wilson second on the tiebreaker over Hill, both level on 16 points.
It was sick, honestly it was beautiful to get in the win. It was pretty gnarly and as we see, the weather's coming in, so we had a red flag, unfortunately, but I was really feeling good.
Cooper Webb · CalgaryThe Anderson Disaster
We wrote in the preview that Anderson is better as the hunter than the hunted. One lap into his title defense, he was on the ground. Two points on the night means the defending champion leaves round one seventeen points behind Webb in a five-round series — not mathematically serious yet, but in a sprint-format championship with no throwaway rounds, that's a hole. The good news for Anderson: Birmingham isn't until October 10. He'll have two months to stew on it, which historically is when he's most dangerous.
SX2: Anstie Doesn't Do Drama
While SX1 needed tiebreakers and weather lawyers, Max Anstie made the SX2 class boring in the most impressive way possible: three races, three wins, a perfect 45-point haul to open his title defense. The Rick Ware Racing rider — yes, RWR swept both classes — was simply on another level from the field all night.
Behind him, the story was Michael Hicks putting the electric Stark on the podium in second overall with 37 points, ahead of Cameron McAdoo on 36. Kyle Peters headed the next group, with Canadian veteran Cole Thompson giving the home crowd a top-five in front of family and friends.
What It Means
Round one delivered on every storyline we flagged — just not the way anyone predicted. Hill was every bit the hard-pack dark horse, fastest all day, and left third. Wilson turned a fill-in ride into a podium. Webb's chaotic bike-swap season started with a win on the bike he's leaving. And Anderson's title defense needs a reset before it starts.
The series now goes quiet until October 10 in Birmingham — where Webb is supposed to show up on a Husqvarna he'll have had about one weekend to build. Two months, four rounds, three continents left. Moto, Moto will be watching.