At the start of the season I said I'd try to write something about every world cup this year, but here we are in the mid-season break and I'm way behind. As I write this report of round 4, round 6 is already over, but I had a few thoughts anyway so here we go!
Gold for Goldstone, again
It's not boring to watch, but it is getting boring to write that Jackson Goldstone won, by a margin, while taking lines nobody else took and bouncing around the track like a hyperactive duracell bunny. If he doesn't crash at some point the rest of the field (OK, probably just Bruni by now) are going to have to step up to stop him running away with the overall.
Alternative drivetrain action
Two riders made the elite podiums without riding a chain over the line. Monika Hrastnik is somewhat of a Val di Sole specialist. Over the last three seasons she averages around 7th place in world cups, and 4th place at this track. This time around she qualified in first and piloted her belt-driven Gamux down to a great third place finish behind Höll and Cabirou. On the men's side, Daprela at least started the run with a chain but it didn't last long. Riding the majority of the track with no chain didn't stop him getting a best result of the season though. I wonder how long it is until someone develops a chain that automatically ejects after pedalling out of the start hut.
Disasters for A. Pierrons
This was not a good weekend if your name was A. Pierron. Amaury had a crash in practice resulting in a broken collarbone, effectively ending his hopes of another overall title this year. Antoine suffered a different fate. Up by miles at the fourth split a flat tyre ripped a first world cup podium out of his hands and put a big dent in what has been by far his best season to date.
Injury update
At the beginning of the season I was really happy to see loads of healthy riders ready to challenge for the overalls in both male and female elite categories. The inevitable whittling-down was well underway by the time finals rolled round. In the women, new challenger Anna Newkirk joined Amaury Pierron in the broken bones club after breaking a hand during practice. Myriam Nicole is still out after a crash and head injury at Leogang and although Nina Hoffmann was racing, she's still suffering the after-effects of her horror crash on the Leogang wallride. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery for all these riders and any more that I missed. On the other side of the coin, Dakota Norton was back on track at Val di Sole making his first steps back to riding after a horrific accident in the off season.
What happened to...
... the new wave of British elites? There are a lot of parallels between the world cup histories of Phoebe Gale and Jordan Williams. They both spent 2022 swapping first and second place finishes with strong Canadian rivals, and they both joined the Elite ranks on major teams in 2023, Williams kick-starting his season with a debut elite win and Gale performing well throughout the season with a string of top finishes leaving her in the top ten overall. Since then however, both have been somewhat eclipsed by their afore-mentioned Canadian rivals, with Goldstone and Hemstreet both going on to become Hardline champions, multiple World Cup winners and genuine title contenders. Clearly both Gale and Williams are exceptional riders and I still have hope that there is more to come.
OK, that's it for this race. The exciting news is that I did manage to make it trackside at La Thuile, so you can look forward to a totally different style of race report at some point, with such details as how much the dust obscures your vision, how slippery the dust is to walk on and how many days afterwards you can expect to be couging up dust for. See you then.
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