The 2022 DH World Cup season starts relatively early this year, with the season opener taking place on Sunday 27th March in Lourdes, France. Famous for its healing waters and miracles, the riders will gather exactly six months and one week after Loïc Bruni and Vali Höll worked miracles of their own.
The 2021 season will live long in the memory. Coming into the final two rounds in Snowshoe, Thibaut Dapréla and Myriam Nicole convincingly led their respective series and looked shoo-ins (pun intended) to claim the overall titles. Dapréla would crash out though, with the young Frenchman breaking his ankle and dislocating his thumb in the first race of the doubleheader. Nicole would slide out on an innocuous piece of track in the second race, allowing Bruni and Höll to scoop up the titles.
If you look at the stats alone, you could argue that we’re currently in a period of Loïc Bruni domination. Over the last five years he’s amassed two World Cup titles and four Elite World Championships to go with the Junior one he won in 2012. It doesn’t feel like that though. In the episode of the Making Up The Numbers podcast with Dean Lucas we talked about the favourites for the 2022 season and agreed that if everyone lays down their fastest run, Bruni probably isn’t even in the top three French riders.
“Amaury Pierron wins, Loris Vergier second and Thibaut Dapréla third”. But laying down your fastest run when the pressure mounts is the challenge and that’s where Bruni excels. Pierron rides on the edge and consequently the last two seasons have been marred by injury, including spending six weeks in hospital mid-season in 2021. Missing two of the six rounds he still came back to finish sixth in the overall though. His teammate Dapréla will be angry. He knows he had the title in his grasp last season and he will be keen to create a similar opportunity in 2022. Vergier, the European Champion and winner of four of the last 10 World Cup races, just needs to win a World title and then we could see a period of domination from the diminutive Frenchman. Add 2021 World Champs Silver Medallist Benoit Coulanges into the mix and it’s possible we could see an all-French men’s elite podium in 2022. They managed four out of five at Lenzerheide last season.
At 40 years old Greg Minnaar shouldn’t be the rider spearheading the charge against the fast Frenchies. Already confirmed as the G.O.A.T. long before winning the 2021 World Champion’s jersey, he’s now trying to become the first rider to win a DH World Cup in his fifth decade on planet earth. We’ve run out of superlatives for Minnaar but one thing we’ve learned is to ‘never say never’ when the South African sets his mind to something. With Luca Shaw departing the Syndicate for Canyon, Minnaar has some new teammates for 2022. With his blondish hair, laid back attitude and passion for surfing, Laurie Greenland could have easily been born in Santa Cruz and after struggling to get the Mondraker Summum set up how he likes it last season, it will be interesting to see how he gets on with the V10. Nina Hoffmann took her first World Cup victory in 2020 and with a number of podium finishes since then has more than earned her place as the first woman to ride for the Syndicate. Also joining is Jackson Goldstone, the child prodigy who is seemingly fulfilling his potential after winning the 2021 Junior Men’s World Cup and World Championship titles.
Those moves were much rumoured towards the end of the season and with the majority of the top riders under contract, all was pretty quiet on the #teamrumours front. Then, with just a few weeks to go, the off-season sparked into life when the YT Mob announced that they wouldn’t be racing in 2022 and their Top 10 riders David Trummer and Dakotah Norton would be moving on. This sparked a chain of events with Trummer taking Greenland’s seat at MS Mondraker where he’s joined by fast young Kiwi, Tuhoto-Ariki Pene and Ireland’s Jacob Dickson. With Neko Mullally stepping aside to run his own program in 2022, Norton jumped into his spot at Intense where he was joined pretty much on deadline day by Joe Breeden. With Aaron Gwin and Seth Sherlock on board as well, Intense look strong coming into 2022.
Just recently, Canyon’s Troy Brosnan, the most consistent rider on the circuit, crashed at the Australian National Championships, breaking his ankle and making it highly unlikely that he’ll be fit in time for Lourdes. Signing Luca Shaw now looks like a very smart move and it will be interesting to see if he can provide Canyon with another genuine podium threat.
Aside from Reece Wilson, who took his first World Cup win in Snowshoe and fifth in the overall, the Brits didn’t have a great 2021. Neither 2020 Series winner Matt Walker nor Danny Hart managed a World Cup podium and it will be interesting to see if they can bounce back in 2022.
Just seven months post-partum, Rachel Atherton looks set to return to World Cup racing in 2022. Since she ruptured her Achilles in 2019, the depth in the Women’s field has increased dramatically and after a period of Atherton domination the racing has become much more exciting. It’s going to be interesting to see where she fits in. Last year, someone said something that has stuck with me: “Myriam is the best racer, Vali is the best rider”. Rachel was the best at both, but after winning everything throughout her career, how hungry will she be to come back?
Höll, the likely heir to her throne, crashed her way through the first half of the 2021 season before taking the final two World Cups and claiming her first Elite overall title at just 20 years of age. With much of the expectation and pressure removed she’s the likely favourite for 2022. Nicole, the 2021 World Champion, was the fastest rider in the Women’s field last season by a considerable distance and will be hungry to avenge losing the title to one small mistake. Add into the mix 2020 World Champion Camille Balanche, 2020 World Cup Overall winner Marine Cabirou, the aforementioned Hoffmann, the much improved Mille Johnset and Tahnee Seagrave, winner of eight World Cup races, and the Women’s field has nearly as many potential winners as the Men’s.
The Junior categories are also potentially going to have standout years. In Junior Men, Goldstone will continue his battle against GB’s Jordan Williams but joining the fight will be some incredibly quick first year riders in France’s Hugo Marini and GB’s Dom Platt. In 2021, Bulgaria’s Izabela Yankova won the World Championships, the World Cup Overall and the European Junior Women’s title and in doing so earned a ride with Specialized on their new Gen-S project. Yankova set some impressive times last season but she didn’t win any of the first three World Cups, with GB’s Phoebe Gale claiming two and Austria’s Sophie Gutoehrle the other. Gale will be back for a second Junior season in 2022 along with first year Junior, Vanesa Petrovska who set a time at Crankworx Innsbruck that would have placed fifth in Elite.
Whichever way you look at it the 2022 season looks set to be another vintage year.
My five big questions coming into 2022…
1. Can Amaury Pierron stay fit all season and reclaim the title he won in 2018?
2. Will Matt Walker be able recapture the form that saw him take the World Cup overall in 2020?
3. Just how fast will Rachel Atherton be? It’s been nearly three years since her last race, but as the old saying goes: form is temporary, class is permanent.
4. Can Greg Minnaar win a World Cup at 40? Surely, it’s a bridge too far now?
5. How much does Aaron Gwin want it? After dominating the sport from 2011 – 2017 he hasn’t won a World Cup since Round 1, 2018. Could 2022 be the year he starts Gwinning all over again?
2022 UCI Downhill World Cup and World Championship dates
- March 26-27: Lourdes, France
- May 21-22: Fort William, UK
- June 10-12: Leogang, Austria
- July 8-10: Lenzerheide
- July 15-17: Vallnord, Andorra
- July 29-31: Snowshoe, USA
- August 5-7: Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada
- August 24–28: UCI Mountain Bike World Championships – Les Gets, France
- September 2-4: Val di Sole, Italy