Valentina Holl produces stunning ride to take home victory ahead of Camille Balanche and Rachel Atherton

UCI Mountain Bike Downhill world champion Valentina Holl (Rockshox Trek Race Team) produced a stunning ride to take the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill title in front her home fans in Austria with a time of 3:23.222. Holl was the final rider to come out of the gate and put down a fearless ride that sparked joyous scenes in the finish area as she celebrated with fans, friends, family and her coaching staff.

Ad Holl flew past the time put down by race leader and defending World Cup Downhill champion Camille Balanche (Dorval Am Commencal) whilst Rachel Atherton (Continental Atherton), the winner last week, took bronze. UCI Mountain Bike World Series'Is he on the run of his life?!' — Kolb takes stunning home victory in Downhill2 MINUTES AGO Italy’s Veronika Widmann (Continental Nukeproof Factory Racing) went out first and set the opening benchmark of 3:41.549 but she was immediately usurped by the second rider out of the gate Jess Blewitt (GT-Continental Factory Racing) of New Zealand who went five seconds quicker with a time of 3:36.303.

The time was then broken twice in succession by two rivals from their days racing in the juniors as first Canada’s Gracey Hemstreet (Norco Factory Team) and then Phoebe Gale (Canyon CLLCTV FMD) of Great Britain set new fastest times despite the latter having a slight error in the woods as she briefly was in the wrong gear. Due to that error, Gale’s lead was just under a second but it was still the first time in her elite career that she had gone into the leader’s chair.

But she didn’t have long in the chair as last week’s winner Atherton put down a blistering time of 3:30.556 which could have been even quicker had she not lost a bit of time on the jumps before the woods. “Wow!”