RESULTS: Snowshoe World Cup DH Elite Semi-Finals

Race day dawned in Snowshoe, West Virginia, pulling back the curtains on what promised to be a great racing show, with the fans already filling into the venue and the sun doing its best to dry up the track. As the semi-finals got underway, those East Coast rocks were still plenty slippery, keeping the racers on their toes as they vied to secure their spot in this afternoon's finals. In the elite women's category, all eyes were on the overall points battle between Vali Höll and Nina Hoffmann, the latter needing a big result in both races today to keep her title hopes alive. Sadly it was not to be for Hoffmann, as she crashed into a tree and ended up in 7th place. Vali was on a whole other level as she pulled out an 8-second lead halfway down the track, only to go down in one of the rockgardens. She had so much time in the bank at that point that she still took first place, putting the rest of the field on notice - if they want to win her today, they're going to have to lift their game and find some more speed. As for the points standings, Vali had a 424-point lead coming into Snowshoe, Vali now has 150 points from Snowshoe compared to 75 for Nina, which has increased Vali's lead to 499 points. There are still 650 points left on the table so mathematically, it's not done yet. The writing sure is on the wall though.

In the men's elite category, let's start with the bigger picture: a mere 10 seconds separated the top 30 riders in this semi-final! if you were 11.8 back, you were already down in 40th, showing just how hard it has become to make the final. No room for mistakes if you're on the bubble. At the sharp end of the rankings, Oisin O'Callaghan laid down an incredible run to confirm his recent run of good results, scoring a 2nd place in the semis on pace with Loic Bruni's fastest qualifier from yesterday. Only thing was, Loic found 2 more seconds today on a much drier track...he looked calm, calculated, and faster than anybody else out there so far. Ronan Dunne and Ethan Craik also flew the flag for the young guns with solid top-ten runs, with Jordan Williams announcing that he might be back up to his early-season pace as well with a tenth place in these semis. Speaking of young guns, Jackson Goldstone looked ominously fast before laying it down in the rocks, we would definitely expect to see him challenging for the top spots in finals later today as well. And on that topic, Dak Norton gave us a huge scare as he washed out the front wheel and went down in the top woods, but he showed that he too is on pace as he recovered enough time to take 5th in the semis. Shoutout to Richie Rude, making it through to the finals for his first DH World Cup since 2013!

And with that, the table is set for a DH feast, finals are next!