The third World Cup DH of the year took place in Austria. Here are the results, race report and highlights vids from Loegang.
RACE HIGHLIGHTS, Elite Women, Leogang Round 3:
RACE HIGHLIGHTS, Elite Men, Leogang Round 3:
DH World Series Rd3 Leogang: Women’s Elite results
| # | Rider | Time | Gap | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gracey HEMSTREET NORCO RACE DIVISION | 03:21.962 | – | 250 |
| 2 | Anna NEWKIRK FRAMEWORKS RACING / 5DEV | 03:22.827 | +00:00.865 | 210 |
| 3 | Valentina HÖLL YT MOB | 03:24.389 | +00:02.427 | 180 |
| 4 | Marine CABIROU CANYON CLLCTV FACTORY TEAM | 03:25.117 | +00:03.155 | 150 |
| 5 | Jess BLEWITT CUBE FACTORY RACING | 03:25.932 | +00:03.970 | 120 |
| 6 | Tahnee SEAGRAVEORBEA / FMD RACING | 03:26.259 | +00:04.297 | 90 |
| 7 | Camille BALANCHE YETI / FOX FACTORY RACE TEAM | 03:28.596 | +00:06.634 | 80 |
| 8 | Harriet HARNDEN AON RACING – TOURNE CAMPERVANS | 03:29.571 | +00:07.609 | 70 |
| 9 | Gloria SCARSI MS-RACING | 03:30.026 | +00:08.064 | 60 |
| 10 | Louise-Anna FERGUSON AXESS INTENSE FACTORY RACING | 03:30.501 | +00:08.539 | 50 |
DH World Series Rd3 Leogang: Men’s Elite results
| # | Rider | Time | Gap | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jackson GOLDSTONE SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE | 02:57.229 | – | 250 |
| 2 | Loic BRUNI SPECIALIZED GRAVITY | 02:57.288 | +00:00.059 | 210 |
| 3 | Henri KIEFER CANYON CLLCTV FACTORY TEAM | 02:57.764 | +00:00.535 | 180 |
| 4 | Lachlan STEVENS-MCNAB TREK FACTORY RACING DH | 02:58.437 | +00:01.208 | 160 |
| 5 | Laurie GREENLAND SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE | 02:58.638 | +00:01.409 | 140 |
| 6 | Ronan DUNNE MONDRAKER FACTORY RACING DH | 02:58.799 | +00:01.570 | 125 |
| 7 | Troy BROSNAN CANYON CLLCTV FACTORY TEAM | 02:58.906 | +00:01.677 | 110 |
| 8 | Andreas KOLB YT MOB | 02:58.910 | +00:01.681 | 95 |
| 9 | Thibaut DAPRELA ROGUE RACING – SR SUNTOUR | 02:58.921 | +00:01.692 | 80 |
| 10 | Max HARTENSTERN CUBE FACTORY RACING | 02:59.093 | +00:01.864 | 75 |
Race reports and photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports:
UCI DH World Cup is Canadian Once Again as Hemstreet and Goldstone Triumph in Leogang
For the second weekend running, Gracey Hemstreet (Norco Race Division) and Jackson Goldstone (Santa Cruz Syndicate) ruled the UCI Downhill World Cup for Canada in a scintillating Saalfelden Leogang – Salzburgerland (Austria) round that saw the overall lead of both competitions also change hands.
Both Elite races rewarded absolute commitment from lighter riders on a fan-favourite stop of the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series, featuring the famous motorway section that would prove decisive for Goldstone.
Goldstone clinched his win by less than a tenth of a second from Loïc Bruni (Specialized Gravity) while Hemstreet enjoyed a wider margin of victory but was made to wait on the edge of her seat until the very end with Valentina Höll (YT MOB) last off the ramp and looking set to snatch the win until the final metres of her run.
Meanwhile Rosa Zierl (Cube Factory Racing) gave the packed Austrian grandstands something to cheer about by winning the women’s Junior Finals and Oli Clark (MS-Racing) made inroads on the overall Men Junior title with his triumph.
A STAR IS BORN AS HEMSTREET BACKS UP MAIDEN WIN
A slow-burn women’s Elite competition exploded into life in the final few runs as Nina Hoffmann (Santa Cruz Syndicate) was absent following a crash in morning practice on the wall run.
Marine Cabirou (Canyon CLLCTV Factory Team) required Q2 to reach the final but showed she was keen to make up for lost time at The Epic Bikepark.
Nailing the exit from a tricky root section into the iconic flat-out motorway section is the key to The Speedster trail and Cabirou flew through the first two time checks, smashing Harriet Harnden’s previous best run for AON Racing – Tourne Campervans by four cavernous seconds.
As rider after rider crossed the line without even getting in touching distance of Cabirou, a first Saalfelden Leogang – Salzburgerland victory and ninth career UCI World Cup seemed more and more likely… until Hemstreet went down the ramp.
Immediately ahead, Hemstreet lost some time in time check three but piled it all back on and more at the next one as she hammered the steep forested section that was the last opportunity to make up serious time.
She crossed the line three seconds ahead of Cabirou and the podium soon became Canada followed by America as Anna Newkirk (Frameworks Racing / 5DEV) missed out on a first UCI World Cup win since 2019 by less than a second.
That meant it was all down to star-crossed fastest qualifier, home favourite and reigning UCI World Champion and World Cup overall winner Höll, who looked destined to complete a rampant hat-trick on local trails when she went a second up at the penultimate time check for YT MOB.
But the Hollywood script was rejected as Höll likewise fell victim to Hemstreet’s scintillating finish and slipped to third to audible groans from the crowd, handing Hemstreet a dream second win in the space of two weekends. She becomes the sixth rider to back up a maiden win with another consecutive win following in the footsteps of a certain Höll and Cabirou in 2021 and 2019.
“I definitely didn’t [expect that], I hadn’t really been feeling too confident this week and it just clicked. There actually felt a lot more pressure than I expected, I struggling at the motorway all week but I just pedalled as hard as I could. I felt it at the bottom so I was happy,” Hemstreet said.
And Hemstreet’s supremacy means she’s also the new overall UCI World Cup leader after Tahnée Seagrave (Orbea / FMD Racing) started strongly but appeared bothered by an old injury in the more technical second half as she hemorrhaged time and wound up sixth while winless Höll is still waiting for her title defence to truly ignite.
GOLDSTONE FLOATS TO MAPLE DOUBLE
The jumbled men’s Elite qualifying meant stars were littered across the startlist and there was action throughout, beginning with the second run of the finals as Ronan Dunne (Mondraker Factory Racing DH) unclipped but still became the first rider of the weekend to break the three-minute barrier after disappointment in Loudenvielle-Peragudes (France) – he’d finish fifth overall.
‘Double O’ Oisin O’Callaghan (YT MOB) was in touch with his compatriot until he was spat off a tough triple-apex corner and hit the deck hard, before his teammate and home hero Andreas Kolb almost sent the crowd into rapture as he exited the woods in the green but his slender 0.066s advantage was dashed on the run to the line.
However, Dunne’s reign ended four minutes later when Lachlan Stevens-McNab (Trek Factory Racing DH) put together the scorching run he’s been threatening all season – he was ahead at the opening round in Bielsko-Biała (Poland) when he crashed but nothing could stop the Kiwi this time as he went into the hot seat.
Despite winning the opening round, Bruni needed a big run to re-establish himself in the overall fight after a poor showing last time out and he produced it, resetting the otherwise tight men’s field by putting 1.4 seconds into Stevens-McNab.
It didn’t last long though as Jackson Goldstone played to his strengths – floating like a butterfly over the stump section and motorway before launching an unbelievable pull into the wall run showing commitment which paid off when he crossed the line ahead of Bruni by the blink of an eye – 0.059s.
With plenty of household names still to go including fastest qualifier Loris Vergier in the rainbow bands and UCI World Cup leader Amaury Pierron (both Commencal Muc-Off by Riding Addiction), Goldstone was far from home and hosed and he was visibly shaking as he watched the remaining riders. However, the strongest challenge came from unheralded Canyon CLLCTV Factory Team rider Henri Kiefer.
The German was the only rider apart from Bruni and Goldstone to lead a sector as Pierron always looked unsettled and nearly came a cropper on several occasions with the green jersey appearing heavy on the Frenchman’s back on the way to 17th place, and Vergier couldn’t replicate his rapid Friday pace as his 1,000-day wait for another UCI World Cup win continues.
Goldstone’s win was even more emotional in the wake of fellow Santa Cruz Syndicate rider Hoffman’s crash earlier, while teammate Laurie Greenland finished fifth and was the first to congratulate the Canadian after Vergier crossed the line.
“That last split and the stump section going into the motorway, those were the two crucial sections for me that I needed to work on and I definitely felt like I couldn’t have got those better in my run,” Goldstone said.
“It’s just crazy, you go through all the emotions of the riders getting close to beating your time and it’s so many ups and downs, you feel for the guys that went down or had mistakes in the run, it’s just a rush of emotions.”
Pierron’s slump means Bruni takes over the UCI World Cup lead with an advantage of 45 points over Goldstone, who said in his winner’s interview that Bruni had joked he won’t speak to the Canadian for a week after such a close-fought race.
HOME FANS REVEL IN JUNIOR TRIUMPH
Rosa Zierl kicked off Downhill finals day in the best way possible for the partisan home crowd, the Austrian national champion was the final rider off the ramp and duly saved the best until last to oust Aletha Ostgaard (Canyon CLLCTV Factory Team).
Ostgaard had been the class of the field, over four seconds quicker than the next best rider, but Zierl traded fastest sector times with the American early on. She never decisively pulled away on the course but overturned a deficit of a second at the penultimate intermediate time check to lead ahead of the final section and went clear in the final few hundred metres.
“It’s incredible, I’m super happy, tight battle with the girls. I knew this track so I was just keen to ride it and have fun,” Zierl said afterwards.
Oli Clark denied overall leader Max Alran (Commencal Muc-Off by Riding Addiction) a second successive Leogang triumph in the men’s junior final, by less than a second.
Asa Vermette (Frameworks Racing / 5DEV) had set the time to beat before the two fastest qualifiers were unleashed onto the mountain, but they showed it was a two-horse race as Alran led through the first two sections before letting victory slip through his fingers.
“It’s pretty surreal, I’ve been working hard to get here so I’m just happy to be here, I’m glad it’s paying off,” Clark said. “I don’t feel pressure, the only pressure I put on is myself.”
Oh, and this happened:
DH World Series Overall Standings: Women’s Elite
DH World Series Overall Standings: Men’s Elite
What’s next?
Next up, the Whoop UCI Mountain Bike World Series heads to Val di Sole in Italy from 20-22 June.
Nah, it’s the luck of the draw. Fairness and equality don’t come into it. If conditions change it can be an advantage and a disadvantage.
Personally I’m in favour of the current, any given Sunday approach. This year, the situation has been the same for Pierron as it has for Platt and Pontviane (two non-elite team riders who have made finals, and happen to start with P).
Need to go full beans in Q1, need to go again in q2 if they fail. No protection, no getting special treatment. The fairest possible way at finding who is fastest on a given track
No benefit whatsoever to being ranked higher/based on previous races or years results. As soon as you start fiddling the start order to make it ‘fair’ someone is bound to lose out and it’s probably the lower ranked rider if you average it out over the season.
only suggestion I have to fix the weather is cut gaps to 30 seconds, then piece it together into a delayed broadcast after the fact. Elite men get through in 15 minutes so minimal chance of a weather change. I guess this ruins it for the in person finish corale spectators though. And someone will spoil the result online before you can watch it…
Exactly.
Or conversely, the rain comes in for the top 10 and the points leaders all miss out.
The new system is working pretty well IMO and the Q1/Q2 thing is clearly better than the old protection system, especially with such a stacked field now.
It’s not a question of fair. Like I said, you have to separate out the individual event result from the overall competition.
For the individual event it’s luck of the draw. Conditions can either come to you or go away from you.
However, with the overall it makes sense to me to have people who are near each other in points to be racing in similar conditions. Many times it’s not going to be a factor but when it is a factor I would say the track or the conditions are more likely to deteriorate rather than improve.
Like I said, with Q1 and Q2, the outcome of qualifying has changed. If you remember they introduced points for qualifying precisely because some riders were gaming the system in order to give themselves an earlier start time. Most obvious example that comes to mind being Matti Lehikoinen in Champery in 2007 (no one remembers he won that race because of Sam Hill’s run in the rain).
With the new format qualifying has become more of a binary thing, rather than determining your start time amongst 80 other riders. You either qualify or you don’t.
To me, the start order for an individual race is not as important as it used to be, therefore ensuring that the people who are competing against each other in the overall have as similar conditions as possible should take a higher priority.
It doesn’t stop you getting random winners if the heavens open mid race. However, it would ensure that Bruni wins by default if he just happens to have a bad qualifying.
Why ? If someone doesn’t qualify in Q1 then they get another go, that’s already enough to give them a second chance, why should they then get another chance to be near their rivals. What happens if they have a crap Q1, then go through in Q2 and get seeded as you say and put it in first…. but would have not been first if unseeded, that’s then not fair on the others for the overall, but is more fair for that particular person.
As always you’re putting your own opinion over as gospel, i don’t know if you actually realise it when writing but it’s all a bit “this is my opinion and i’m right"… Whereas others are perfectly entitled to have their opinion too.
Most WC racers voted for LCQ and removal of protected status, but you think they’re all wrong 😀
If you actually read what I’m saying, I’m suggesting an alternative. Not saying this is the way it must be.
The problem I have is that people seem to be misinterpreting what I am saying. You in particular seem especially keen to misinterpret me in order for me to be ‘wrong’. Perhaps you should look at your own style of posting?
To clarify. There would still be no protected status. If the series leader fails to qualify in Q2 then they don’t race.
Q1 Q2 has changed the nature of qualifying. I think it’s worth looking at what the purpose is and what we are trying to achieve rather than just going with the way it’s always been.
Like I said, a track is more likely to deteriorate rapidly than improve rapidly. More often it is riders further up the start order (riders who start earlier in the day) who are going to benefit.
Therefore if you have riders further down the overall starting earlier it increases the chances of a ‘freak’ result. Freak results are cool but not so much so when they end up affecting the overall standings. Possibly this is what we saw at the weekend. We’ll never know as the series leaders start times were so far removed from each other.
Anyway, something to consider but only if you consider what I am actually saying rather than what you have decided I have said in order to make me ‘wrong’.
But it’s not like they can fudge it so they can get a Q2 start as that’s WAY too risky, you wouldn’t put in a crap Q1 run if you could help it just to give yourself a chance at a decent Q2, the risk is too high.
I don’t see what you’re trying to achieve in honesty, how are you deciding which rider goes where in Finals then, lets say Vergier, Bruni and Jackson all end up in Q2, then make it through, how do you decide where to put them.
Lets say you put them in after say Ronan, Luke MS, Thirion because they’re higher ‘ranked’ than those, how is that fair on them ? How do you decide which of them goes in what order ?
Personally i think it works well. It’s pretty fair that if you don’t make Q1, you shouldn’t get thrown in the mix with the Q1s and should be down out of sequence.
In the same way as it may have favoured the Q2 guys this weekend (if the wind changed) next race it could be the exact opposite with the wind, or a drying track and the later runners get a drier/better track… it’s just the luck of the draw.
We’ve seen it at Nationals where someone DNfs in seeding which puts them #1 off the hill for race runs, then just as they’re heading off the rain starts…. They get a 99% good track, the rest of their cat gets a rubbish track as it’s rained more and more… But that’s the thing, everyone knows this can or may happen and it’s just how it is.
Like I said, qualifying is now more of a binary thing. You either qualify or you don’t. It’s not to decide the start order amongst 80 people anymore.
Therefore, if the start order is less important, why not make it so that it ensures you always see the top 5 guys in the overall racing in more or less the same conditions.
For example, can we say definitively that Bruni and Goldstone just out-rode Vergier and Peirron or was it because of the conditions?
For me the end of the race yesterday was a bit of a damp squib. You could see none of the last 5-10 riders down the hill were going to be anywhere near Bruni and Goldstone.
However, if it had been based on WC standings then we might have seen Henri Kiefer win his first WC while Bruni, Goldstone, Pierron, and Vergier were just trying to fight against each other for overall points.
Like I said, I think Q1Q2 is a vast improvement but that doesn’t mean there might be options to improve it further.
Is it not entirely possible that Bruni and Goldstone being 2 of the best riders on the planet both just put together fast runs ?
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/race-analysis-from-the-2025-leogang-dh-world-cup.html
Looking at the analysis, Bruni was only quick in the last half… If the wind was better for him at the top, then surely he’d have been quicker in Sector 1/2.
Jackson was flying in Sector 1/2 and a donkey in 3/4
Of course. The problem is, because there was so much time passed between their runs and Pierron and Vergier’s runs (who are also 2 of the best riders on the planet), we can’t know if it was because they were the two best riders on the day or if they were amongst the 4 best riders on the day but just got the right conditions.
Again, it’s not a fairness question. DH is always going to have an element of luck. To me it just makes sense if you’re going to have an overall competition then why not have the guys close to each other in the overall starting in close proximity to each other.
Especially now that qualifying has become much more about making the cut off, rather than a way of determining the start order.
FWIW, IMHO – Ric is really not great, that Josh fella was excellent, and Neko is very good in a ‘straight-man from the Tango orange advert’ kinda way.
I paid for GCN last year, this year I got the discovery+ subs free as an add on to my phone contract. Had no idea it was going to include the DH at the time, and it includes some good rugby and other sports.
Watching it live is absolutely gripping, breathtaking, love it. Leogang was superb, new Q format and limited number of riders for main race makes great TV and coverage.
I don’t hate the idea that overall ranking determines start order in the finals – but I don’t think the data backs up your reasoning.
Vergier finished outside the top 10 in the last 5 world cups of 2024 (and was 19th a Leogang) and Pierron had a 10th, 13th (also Leogang) & 15th.
Definitely there could be multiple explanations for the results. However, that’s why I think if it’s possible the variables should be reduced as much as possible to reduce the discussions of, ‘Was it wind? Did a berm blow out? etc’
Ultimately it was a bit of a strange weekend where the riders who qualified 11th, 14th, and 16th finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd while the riders who qualified 1st, 2nd, and 3rd finished 15th, 17th, and 18th.
This could be explained by any number of factors but we are left wondering just how much conditions changed. Because of this result Pierron lost the overall lead while Vergier and Williams are now around 300 points behind Bruni.
Yes, but…. i don’t see that as a problem. Just a circumstance that may have happened. The conditions changing isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a thing.
some you win, some you lose.
Look at the race where some of them got SNOW at the top and some never.. no-one was saying that the rider order should be different then, but that seems to be because the fastest qualifiers got the best runs. However some at the start of the session got snow, some never, then it cleared up at the end… so how’s that fair on the ones who got the snow ? Answer is, it’s not… but who says it has to be fair.. it’s just racing 🙂
@brucewee It seems to me that the previous protected status kept the top folks in the points running and reinforced their top folks status, and so making it harder for up and comings. They have deliberately got rid of protected and we see previous safe bet point makers missing out. Intentionally. And people are loving that change. And you are proposing a new system to keep the top folks top, a sort of new protection. That is why I think your proposal is bad.
They tried it for a while a few years ago, and it was awful.
If memory serves, Bulldog* had gone fastest in quali, but was forced to start earlier – and everyone got rightly upset.
(*might have been a different rider)
“proposal is bad" is a bit of a bad phrasing, sorry.
That is why I cannot support you proposal 😆
Again, not suggesting we go back to having protected riders. If Bruni crashes out of Q2 he doesn’t start the main race.
Another thing I said earlier, qualis have fundamentally changed. It’s no longer to determine the start order of 80 riders. It’s more of a binary cut off where you make it or you don’t. Arguably anyone who qualifies for the finals is capable of getting on the podium if the stars align.
If the nature of qualifying has fundamentally changed I think it’s worth looking at it with fresh eyes and figure out what we are trying to achieve and if it is still suits it’s purpose.
imo if anyone can potentially win then the start order is less important. Therefore maybe the focus should shift to ensuring the people who are close to each other in the overall are racing against each other in the most similar conditions possible.
There probably are downsides we haven’t considered yet.
I don’t think ‘we’ are left wondering anything… this week was about as consistent conditions as I’ve seen in recent years, the weather stayed broadly the same & the course held up well on most places. Loudenville blew out everywhere but Pierron was last run & finished 2nd…. Compare that with the others you’ve picked up on:
Vergier (3rd quali) came 7th and Bruni (2nd quali) came 15th (and over 5s back, which is a much bigger difference than the gap between these riders in Leogang) so having these 3 next to each other in the start list still resulted in a big spread of finishing places, and a bigger spread in time.
Courses change and develop over time, but this format at least means the fastest riders on the weekend are getting the most exposure, regardless of their past performance, which is as it should be in my opinion. It produces great racing and more often than not results in a great build up to the final runs.
I’d be looking at the relatively ‘straightforward’ nature of the track and the resulting very tight times before thinking about the start list order.
Well, there was definitely something going on with the wind. There was also something happened with one of the berms (I think Gwin exploded it). That’s just what we know about.
How much effect it had we are just left to wonder about.