Gracey Hemstreet just wrote herself into mountain bike history, and Jackson Goldstone is back in a big way.
Both Sea to Sky athletes won their respective World Cup events on Sunday. Hemstreet clocked in at 3:39.179, enough to secure not only her inaugural elite downhill World Cup victory but the first by any Canadian woman. She pulled it off over a formidable field that included reigning world champ
Goldstone spent all of last season rehabilitating his ACL and MCL, both of which he tore whilst crashing into a tree, but needed just three minutes and 13.192 seconds to fly down the daunting track in Loudenvielle, France.
Höll settled for silver (3:42.348) and bronze went to Tahnee Seagrave (3:48.081) in the ladies' race. Amaury Pierron (3:14.729) and Jordan Williams (3:16.163) placed second and third behind Goldstone.
'Death grip'
The usually-dominant Höll threw down the gauntlet with a slick run. Perennial contenders Marine Cabirou, Nina Hoffmann and Lisa Baumann weren't so lucky: all made key errors that knocked them far down the leaderboard.
Yet Hemstreet managed to capture lightning in a bottle. After losing roughly three seconds to Höll in the course's top portion, she stormed back courageously to wrest top position away from her Austrian opponent.
Seagrave had a chance to upset the apple cart even further with the day's best opening split, but was unable to keep her blistering momentum alive from start to finish.
"I can’t believe it," said Hemstreet in a press release. "This has been a dream come true forever, and it has finally happened. I just tried the death grip and went as fast as I could. I was a bit scared of the loose stuff but was fully pinned everywhere else. I was just cautious in those sketchy areas and then let it go on the rest. The triple at the top, I couldn’t hit it, I rolled it, it was hard."
The Sunshine Coast native added on Instagram: "Dreams do come true. Thank you [Norco Race Division for everything, couldn't have done it without you guys."
While Seagrave maintains a 116-point lead in the season ranking, the day belonged to Hemstreet and her unprecedented breakthrough.
'It feels good to be back'
Williams set an early benchmark among the gentlemen, looking on as Davide Palazzari, Luke Meier-Smith and former King of Crankworx went down on the technical course. Goldstone proved up to snuff, however, fighting through a windy top section and carving novel lines through the woods to notch what would become the quickest time.
Four French riders had a chance to make their home fans proud late in the contest, but only one earned hardware. Nathan Pontvianne battled to fourth, Loris Vergier held onto seventh, and incumbent overall champ Loïc Bruni was waylaid into 15th after miscalculating one of his ramp jumps.
Pierron got to within shouting distance of the victorious Squamolian, but no closer.
"It feels good to be back, I can’t believe that I won,” Goldstone commented in a release. “I really liked it and gave it everything in the bottom two splits. I got into a really good zone, I wasn’t nervous for some reason. I had so much fun out of there.
"Amaury [Pierron] had me on my toes there, he had such a good run going but the last two splits really helped me there. I’m stoked to pull it off [and] it’s huge for Gracey. I’m so stoked."
Pierron holds a 40-point overall lead on Bruni.
Full results from Loudenvielle are available
