Vali Höll and Loic Bruni launch downhill MTB World Cup season with victories at Fort Bill.
Reigning series champions Valentina Höll and Loïc Bruni started the 2024 UCI MTB World Cup Downhill series with victory in the Elite Women’s and Elite Men’s races at the opening round of the series in Fort William, Scotland, while we sat on the edge of our seat all night to watch Troy Brosnan put his heart and soul into his run, coming just short for a big second place finish in a clear signal that he has his eyes on the prize in 24…
Austrian rider Höll, the 2023 World Cup winner and world champion, returned to the site of her 2023 World Championships victory in the Scottish highlands the strong favourite for victory. The 22 year old YT Mob rider took victory in Saturday’s semi-finals by a sizeable 2.355s margin over British rider Tahnée Seagrave and was the last rider down the hill in Sunday’s final run. Höll faced an extremely tough test after exceptional runs from Seagrave and Germany’s Nina Hoffmann, but delivered her best again when the pressure was on to tame the longest track on the World Cup calendar and take victory in a time of 4m 41.424s.
Santa Cruz Syndicate rider Hoffmann rode an exceptional middle sector of the course that helped her secure second place, just 0.561s behind Höll, an improvement of two places and eight seconds over her semi-finals run. Canyon CLLCTV FMD team leader Seagrave was back on form all weekend after battling to fully recover from effects of a concussion for more than a year. The 28 year old was fastest qualifier and finished second to Höll in the semi-finals, before scoring third in the final to score her first top-three finish since 2022. Very stoked to see Sian A’hern make the cut and drop great runs in both semi’s and the main.
In the Elite Men’s final, Loïc Bruni started his World Cup campaign in perfect style as he dominated his rivals to win by an impressive 1.8s. The five-time world champion set out his stall early by topping qualifying by 3.293s over his Specialized Gravity Racing team-mate Finn Iles and after a third place in the semi-finals, the 29 year old delivered another unbeatable run to victory.
Adelaide DH weapon Troy Brosnan was fastest in the semi-finals, but couldn’t match Bruni’s pace in finals and claimed second, 1.840s back on the winning time, while Bruni’s team-mate Finn Iles of Canada completed the top three, 1.989s behind Bruni.
The 2024 UCI MTB World Cup Downhill series continues on May 17–19 at a brand new venue in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, which we’re hearing is a gnarly DH course rather than the straight line endurance race track of Fort William…