4 Things We Learned from the 2022 Leogang DH World Cup

Another year, another Leogang race, and another win for Camille Balanche. The Swiss rider made history last weekend as she became the only woman to have ever won there three times in a row. Previously, she equalled Rachel Atherton's two victories in 2015 and 2016. No rider has ever won more than three times, with Aaron Gwin being the only other person to have also won here three times in a row. Not only did Camille make it into the history books, but her winning margin was absolutely huge with 11 seconds separating her from Myriam Nicole. A winning margin this big hasn't been seen in Elite Women's racing since Marine Cabirou's Val di Sole win back in 2019.

A theme that we are starting to see more and more this season is Junior riders laying down runs that rival the times of some of the top Elites. In Fort William, Jordan Williams and Jackson Goldstone's times would have net them a top-six finish and now in Leogang, we have another young rider rivalling the world's best.

British Junior racer Phoebe Gale had an incredible run at the weekend as she not only beat the fastest qualifier, Jenna Hastings, by 14 seconds, but she also laid down a run that would have seen her placing fourth in the Elite Women's race. You can argue that she had slightly better conditions, but this is still very impressive. It was Phoebe’s first win at this venue and her third overall Junior win, backing up two second-place finishes this season.

There was one part of the course crucial to the win in Leogang, the tricky woods section. For this year, some work had been done to make it slightly easier in the wet and the trail crew had worked before finals day to clear some of the biggest ruts from the wet practice day. Even so, it was the part of the course that could make or break a run. Some riders would enter the woods in the green only to leave way off the pace.

One interesting thing we have spotted was that in every race, except the Junior Men's, the winner always made up time in the fourth split on other riders. While the top of the course was important, it's interesting to look at Matt Walker's winning run where he was only the fastest in the fourth split. There is one exception to this trend which is Jackson Goldstone. He lost a lot of time at the top of the course with a crash and made up time on the race winner in the fourth split, but unlike the three other races, it wasn't enough to take the win. Without the mistake at the top of his run, it looks like he could have taken another win.

Finally, the tricky conditions and course in Leogang seem to have not suited the French riders last weekend as we saw the worst performance in the Elite men's race that we have seen for some time. So far this year we have always seen six French Elite male racers inside the top 20, but Leogang saw this drop to just four. Even in the equally wet and wild Leogang race last year, France equalled other 2022 races with six inside the top 20.

Topping the nations inside the top 20 this time was Great Britain which managed to fit five riders into the top of the results sheet including a top-two finish. Trailing the French riders were three from the USA, and two each from Australia, Austria and Canada among the 20 fastest riders.