Finals Photo Epic: Fort William DH World Cup 2024 – Pinkbike

The legendary Fort William course delivered more racing moments to remember for the opening round of the 2024 series as we saw two new Junior winners alongside Vali Höll’s continued dominance and Loic Bruni finally winning in Scotland.

Heather Wilson dominated on home soil as she followed up a second place in qualifying to take the win by 3.597 seconds. Sacha Earnest piloted her new Trek race bike to second place as she just pulled ahead of Eliana Hulsebosch. 2023 World Champion Erice Van Leuven suffered a rear flat, but she still managed to power towards the finish in fifth. Asa Vermette answered the wild pre-season hype as he stormed the Fort William course to take his first World Cup victory. Vermette ends the opening round with a debut win and a winning margin of six seconds against Luke Wayman. Daniel Parfitt secured third at his home race, 6.218 off the winning pace.

A new team and bike didn’t slow Vali Höll down as she started 2024 in the same fashion she ended the 2023 season with a race win. After falling behind in split two Vali Höll pulled back time through the final two track sectors to match her 2023 World Championship winning result in Fort William. Nina Hoffmann rode a great race with it looking unlikely any rider would match her time with Vali Höll and Tahnee Seagrave falling behind in split two. The final splits proved to be make or break in the women’s race as Höll made up 1.7 seconds to beat Hoffmann by 0.561. Tahnee Seagrave is back on top form as she ends the week in third place.

Loic Bruni battled off some close competitors to secure his first elite World Cup win in Fort William after never quite managing to bring it all together in past years. After setting the fastest time in qualifying Bruni was right in the mix the whole weekend and a final push in his last run saw him best Troy Brosnan by 1.8 seconds. Brosnan came very close to matching the success of his first World Cup win back in 2014 at Fort William but he would have to settle for second after not finding an answer to Bruni’s show of strength at round one. Finn Iles completed the top three as he was the only other rider within two seconds of the hard-charging Bruni.

There’s now a short break before racing kicks off next weekend in Poland with a brand new track for round two.

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