The downhill queen added another crown in Les Gets, but this one arrived with a twist. Vali Höll finished third at the French venue on 22 August 2026, a result that sealed her fifth UCI Downhill World Cup overall title with two rounds still to race.
Five wins from six, decided early
She only needed a top-five result to close out the championship. Höll entered the weekend holding a 553-point lead, the product of a season in which she won five of the first six rounds. No rival could close that gap, and the Austrian's podium ride made the arithmetic final.
A run built on risk, settled by numbers
The final on the storied Les Gets track played out with drama that mattered for the race, not the title. Höll stormed out of the start hut and sat 1.2 seconds up at the first split, which stretched to 2.9 seconds by the second. But the margins tightened sharply in the lower woods; she was suddenly 0.2 seconds down at the penultimate checkpoint and could not claw it back at the line.
Hattie Harnden won the day in 4:11.966, with Marine Cabirou second at 1.232 seconds back. Höll crossed 1.426 seconds off the winner, her 4:13.392 still more than enough for the crown. The venue remained an outlier — a World Cup win at Les Gets still eludes her — yet the overall trophy left with the same rider it has followed for most of the decade.
After the race, Höll kept her focus simple. “When an aggressive approach pays off, it's one of the most incredible feelings a rider can experience,” she had said recently, and that mindset carried her through a season built on decisive early attacks.
The 2026 overall marks her fifth title, adding to a collection that began in her rookie year in 2021 and continued through three straight crowns from 2023 to 2025. At 24, the Salzburg native now stands alone as the defining downhill racer of her generation.
