RESULTS - Loris Vergier and Vali Höll Fastest in World Champs Downhill Qualifying 34

The results mean little but still give us a good indication of who's feeling good on the track.

iceman2058

8/27/2021 4:54am

Qualifying for the 2021 Downhill World Championships took place today on a rough, steep, and dry Val di Sole track. World Champs qualifying is different from regular World Cup qualifying in that it carries no points and has no bearing on the starting order (which is set according to the latest World Cup standings for both qualifying and the main race). The Men's Elite category also has more riders entered than there are spots available in the final (80), so unprotected riders had to make sure they qualified (the top 20 men from the latest World Cup standings are protected). The other categories all had less riders entered than spots available in the finals (except the Junior Women where 16 riders were set to battle for 15 final spots...no word yet on whether the UCI will decide to let all 16 race the final as they did recently when facing a similar situation).

Izabela Yankova confirmed her good World Cup results by qualifying first here with a comfortable margin. Oisin O'Callaghan showed that despite his less-than-stellar start to the World Cup season he has the speed and certainly is ready to defend his stripes from last year. Vali Höll once again qualified fastest among the Elite women - will Sunday be the day that she converts a #1 qualifying spot into her first Elite win? With only a second separating her from Myriam Nicole anything can still happen. The same is true for the Elite men, where Loris Vergier showed that he is definitely the in-form man of the moment - but read nothing into the rest of the results as plenty of guys will have been on cruiser runs just to secure their spots in the finals or because they did not feel like taking any risks with nothing on the line. Bring on Sunday!