Goldstone by 59 Hundredths, Hemstreet Beats Höll at Home: Leogang DHI in the Rain

The forecast said rain and the track delivered on every promise. When the elite men's finals began at Leogang on Saturday afternoon, the Bikepark's signature black lines were running as a mud-and-root lottery — traction negotiable, commitment required, the risk of a speed-washing crash high enough that several top qualifiers gave back time on sections they'd ridden cleanly in Thursday training.

The rider who handled the conditions best was Jackson Goldstone. The Santa Cruz Syndicate rider came down the mountain with the particular aggressive calm of someone who has ridden wet tracks so many times the mud has become neutral information. He hit his marks through the rock garden section, carried his speed into the flatter intermediate zone, and arrived at the split times faster than anything on the board. When his finish time went up, it sat there unchallenged through the rest of the top seedings. Loïc Bruni arrived 59 hundredths behind him.

Fifty-nine hundredths of a second. On a course that takes approximately three and a half minutes to complete, that margin — less than half a percent of the total elapsed time — is the difference between winning and second place. Bruni took it professionally, as a rider who has finished second at enough World Cup events to know the gap that size is the product of impeccable riding, not one unlucky corner.

Finn Iles, who had topped the Q2 qualifying sheet with a 3:17.747 that gave him the number-one start position in finals, finished third. He had the fastest qualifying time. He did not have the fastest race time. That asymmetry — the strong qualifier who cannot quite convert on finals day — is the week's story for Iles, and it was not catastrophic. A podium at Leogang, in wet conditions, with a field this deep, is a result to build on.

The Men's Race: How Goldstone Won It

The Leogang track in dry conditions rewards precision and commitment on the steep upper rock sections, where the fastest lines are also the most exposed. In the wet, those same lines become both more important and more dangerous — the alternative routes that dry-condition riders might use as insurance run even slower on a muddy afternoon, so the fast wet-weather rider has no choice but to commit to the ideal line and trust the grip to be there.

Goldstone committed. His POV footage from the opening practice laps earlier in the week — widely circulated among the race's following, showing him navigating the track's early wet conditions with controlled aggression — previewed the form he brought to Saturday afternoon. By the time the top seeds came down, the track had deteriorated from the intermediate runs, making each early rider's time slightly more impressive in retrospect.

Bruni's run was excellent. The Specialized Gravity veteran has been a fixture on Leogang podiums across multiple seasons and read the track conditions with the efficiency of someone who has made more runs at this venue than almost any other rider in the field. The 59-hundredths deficit was not a mistake. It was Goldstone's margin.

The Women's Race: Hemstreet's Wait

The structural drama in the women's finals came from the start order. In the 2026 DHI World Cup format, the women's final runs with the current series leader starting last — a rule designed to create maximum tension and reward consistent season performance. That leader is Valentina Höll.

Höll is from Leogang. This is not a metaphor or an approximation — the Austrian rider grew up here, trained here, and has been the most visible athlete at this event for years. The bikepark's infrastructure, the race circuit's corners, the specific way the track drains in the rain — Höll knows all of it the way residents know their front path. The crowd at the bottom of the course has been there for her specifically.

Gracey Hemstreet came down earlier in the day and put up a time that sat on the board through every subsequent run. The Canadian had finished second to Höll at the previous round in Loudenvielle, and the Leogang result reverses that order. Back-to-back wins from two consecutive rounds.

When Höll finally pushed out of the start gate, the atmosphere at the bottom of the track shifted. The intermediate splits showed her competitive through the upper section. Into the finish, she had everything she needed to post a winning time — and then she didn't. Hemstreet's time held by a margin that the crowd understood before the split screen could show it. Höll finished second on her home track. The Canadian in the hot seat had waited long enough.

Vali Höll remains the DHI series leader going into the remainder of the 2026 season. A second place at your home event in wet conditions, as the last rider down the mountain, is not a collapse — it is evidence of a consistent season that started from a high baseline. But Hemstreet is now the rider who has beaten Höll twice in two weekends from different positions: runner-up last week, winner this week.

The series picture has sharpened. The rounds ahead will test whether Höll can reassert her qualifying and finals dominance on tracks where the crowd is neutral.

The Track at 25

Leogang's bikepark turns 25 this year. The timing injects context into every run at this venue: the infrastructure that produces World Cup downhill racing at this level was built incrementally across 25 years of development, expansion, and course modification, starting from a local bikepark and growing into one of the definitive technical downhill tracks on the circuit.

Saturday's conditions — rain, mud, and the particular chaos that the vMAX Raw feed captured in its broadcast — did not feel like a celebration. They felt like the track asserting its own character. Twenty-five years of World Cup racing has taught this mountain how to make fast riders look honest.

For a guide to riding the Leogang bikepark yourself — the trail system, the gondola access, the DH and enduro infrastructure — see our Epic Bikepark destination guide. For yesterday's XCC Short Track coverage with Blevins and Pieterse, see our Leogang XCC field report.