Disaster for Finn Iles and glory for Goldstone at Loudenvielle World Cup
An absolutely wild day of downhill racing in France
Photo by:
Bartek Wolinski / Red Bull Content Pool
After a rocky start to the weekend, Sunday served up a thrilling and wild day of elite downhill racing, totally redeeming the Loudenvielle World Cup. An absolutely stunning course and slick conditions challenged even the best riders.
Canadians had mixed fortunes, with Jackson Goldstone landing on the podium and Gracey Hemstreet in the top 10 while Finn Iles endures a devastating DSQ on France.
Elite Women: Hoffmann vs Höll
Gracey Hemstreet was first out of the start hut for the elites on Sunday. The Sunshine Coast racer lit off fast at the top until, lower down int eh woods a little wash-out on the steep, wildly off-camber stretch slowed the Norco racer’s run. Hemstreet quickly regained composure and would ride out the remainder of the track to finish eighth.
It would turn out a clean run was going to be a tall order on Sunday. Mille Johnset (Canyon FMD) found a different spot to slide out. Lisa Baumann (Commencal Les Orres) , third down, had her own trouble. That didn’t stop when the favourites dropped in. Tahnee Seagrave (Canyon Cllctv) was on a killer run before losing the front end in the soft, unpredictable mud.
Marine Cabirou (Scott DH), flying the French tri-colour at home, sets the first time to challenge for the win, beating Baumann by over three seconds.
Nina Hoffmann (Syndicate) winner last week in Andorra, looked super fast at the top but starts to struggle at the bottom. The German still finished 2.5 seconds ahead of Cabirou with just Vali Holl left at the top.
Höll started steady, going back and forth between green and red with the German. But, where Hoffmann started to tire, Höll picked up speed in the second half of the track. The Austrian, wearing the world champion’s rainbow stripes, sails ahead to win by 2.840 seconds,
“It was one of my first tricky mud races in the elites so I’m happy,” 21-year-old Höll said of her win. “I had a few sketchy moments but I was able to just crack on.”
Nina Hoffmann finishes second, Marine Cabirou third, Phoebe Gale fourth and XC-convert Lisa Baumann fifth in Loudenvielle.
Elite Men: Specialized’s mixed fortunes
Loudenvielle proved to be a track where racers had to take risks and ride on the edge to be in touch at all, but those risks resulted in crashes or problems just as often as they were rewarded. Bernard Kerr, Danny Hart, Finn Iles, Oisin O’Callaghan all found themselves on the wrong side of the risk-reward balance.
Rémi Thirion, always a threat when the track is steep and conditions are sketchy, put a heavy time early on, beating Ethan Craik’s hottest time of 0.621 seconds for Giant Factory Off-Road on the new Glory.
Dakota Norton (Intense Factory Racing) put in an absolute heater of a run, building speed all the way down the brutal track to unseat Thirion. Norton was not perfectly clean but with every slight slide or drift, the American was quickly back on track and up to speed.
Finn Iles (Specialized Gravity Racing) was looking clean on his race run but couldn’t reign in the speed after a big scrub, unclipped and exited the track. The Specialized racer was on the wrong side of at least one course pole, an automatic DSQ in downhill, but was moving at such pace that he either wasn’t sure he’d actually gone off course or was already so far down the track that there was no point in climbing back up to get back on course. It’s a super unfortunate DSQ for the Whistler local that will sting all the more as it comes while the Canadian was wearing the World Cup leader’s jersey. He’ll hand that off after Loudenvielle, returning it to Specialized Gravity teammate Loic Bruni. With his points from semi-finals, Iles sits just five points ahead of Goldstone in the standings.
Jackson Goldstone is back from injury and surgery and, after a crash in qualifying, was back on form in France. The Syndicate was the first in finals to successfully send a huge double at the top of the course, drifting into the flat corner perfectly from there. Despite the daring move, the young racer was still off the pace. He nearly lost the front end a couple of times through the steep off-camber section, drifting further back, but then pulled back a full second between the third and fourth sections on the track. By the finish line, the Syndicate racer had somehow clawed back time to move into second behind Dakotah Norton. A phenomenal show of patience and pacing from the young Canadian..
Loic Bruni, though, was the next rider out of the start hut. After losing the weather lottery last week in Andorra, the Frenchman was looking for redemption at home in Loudenvielle. The Specialized racer looked as controlled and calm as ever for the most part but with a foot out and the occasional drift hinting that he was riding on the edge. At the finish line, though, Super Bruni was back on top. The fastest time of the day earned a huge response from the packed French crowd in Loudenvielle.
Last week’s winner, Thibaut Daprela tried his best to match his countryman’s time, attacking right from the gate. A big OTB ended Daprela’s run, though, after slipping a hand off the bars on a big compression. While Daprela popped up quickly and looked fine, his bike had cleared the safety net and was thoroughly entangled in some brambles. A nice fan helped yank the race rig out of the shrubbery but any chance of a decent result was long gone.
Laurie Greenland, the last rider on track, started slow like his teammate Goldstone. Again, building speed towards the finish, Greenland just edged out Goldstone at the finish line to move into third.
Benoit Coulanges, fastest in quali and semi-finals, was the last rider to potentially challenge Bruni. The Commencal rider was on pace, within 0.015 seconds of Bruni but the daring bet to run dry tires on the wet track bit Coulanges, but not the dirt, as he slid out on an off-camber corner.
That puts Loic Bruni on the top step of the podium, with his first win of 2023. Norton holds on for second with Greenland third, Goldstone fourth and Thirion back on the box in fifth.
With the win, Bruni takes back the leader’s jersey from teammate Finn Iles. Less than 100 points separate the top three in the standings, though. With three rounds of racing left, each has a home course to try to take full advantage of. Bruni next week in Les Gets. Then final return to the Canadian’s home court, when Goldstone and Iles will end the season at Mont-Sainte-Anne in Quebec.
