Jackson Goldstone wins his first UCI DH Cup at Val di Sole!

Valentina Höll and Jackson Goldstone blazed epic final runs at this year’s most technical and straight up gnar UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Val di Sole, Italy, to win the Elite Women’s and Elite Men’s races.

Only two weeks after scoring her first elite win on home soil in Leogang, Höll was on unbeatable form again on the much more technical course in Val di Sole. Famed as the most demanding and difficult track on the downhill World Cup calendar, Höll showed her technical prowess and strength to win the semi-finals by over 3.5s over Switzerland’s Camille Balanche and backed up her dominant form in the final.

Jess Blewitt

As the final six riders on the hill began their runs, it was France’s Marine Cabirou who set the first serious time to beat, crossing the line in 4m 12.445s.Germany’s Nina Hoffmann failed to beat Cabirou’s time, but New Zealand’s Jess Blewitt bettered it by almost a quarter of a second, only for her time to be beaten by Balanche by almost two seconds with only Höll left to go.

The Austrian world champion was on a different level to her rivals on track however and was fastest through every single time split as she crossed the finish line in 4m 7.440s to beat Balanche by a big margin of 2.9s, while Blewitt took third, 4.770s behind Höll. Balanche still leads the World Cup points chase after the third race of the eight-round series on 1080 points, but Höll has closed the gap significantly on 982 and the pair look all but set to decide the championship between themselves. Massive shout out to Sian A’hern for a solid 10th place.

In a mental Men’s race that was made all the more difficult by a mid-afternoon rain shower that turned large swathes of the course more than a lil slippery for a large crew of racers, Santa Cruz Syndicate rider Jackson Goldstone became the second Elite class rookie win this season and head Finn Iles in a Canadian 1–2, with Troy Brosnan stomping a solid 4th place.

After losing out on a potential debut win in Leogang after almost crashing in the final corner, Goldstone made no mistake in Italy. He finished fourth in the semi-finals and then, as the course began to rapidly dry out for the final 15 racers, delivered a brilliant finals run that saw him go faster and faster through each time split to register a time of 3m 34.926s and beat the previous fastest of Thibaut Daprella by 2.440s. It’s definitely a new gen of racers on the top step. So good to see Remy Meier-Smith up on the hotseat for a long ol time too!

Thibaut Daprela

Jackson at home on the steep and brutal track

Jackson on the top step

Finn Iles

With just three riders left to go, fellow Canadian Finn Iles got closest to beating Goldstone’s time, finishing 2.224s behind his countryman, and when Britain’s Jordan Williams crashed out and semi-final winner Loris Vergier could only post the fifth fastest time, Goldstone’s maiden Elite win was confirmed. Giving him even more reason to celebrate, Goldstone also moved into the lead of the overall Elite Men’s World Cup, where he now leads Illes on 786 points to 774. Not bad for the lil dude we knew on a balance bike only a short 10 years ago….