2026 Race Season Review: Downhill and Enduro

The lifts are closing and the race calendars are empty – time to look back. The 2026 gravity season had it all: a teenager winning the Downhill World Cup in his first elite year, a rider from Salzburg chasing records, German world champions in enduro, and a discipline that has to reinvent itself after this year. Here are the stories that stick.

Downhill World Cup: Asa Vermette wins as a rookie

The biggest story of the season is 19 years old. Asa Vermette (Frameworks Racing/TRP) won the Elite Men's overall World Cup – in his very first elite season. Only Nicolas Vouilloz had done that before him. Vermette is also just the second American ever to take the Downhill World Cup.

It wasn't easy. Going into the final in Lake Placid (USA), the title was a three-way fight between Vermette, Jordan Williams and Amaury Pierron. Pierron crashed twice in qualifying and missed the final, while Vermette had to battle through the second qualifying round. In the final, eighth place was enough, because Williams only finished sixth. Vermette ended on 1,442 points, 66 ahead of Williams, with Pierron third overall.

The race itself went to Luke Meier-Smith – just like last year at the same venue. Austria's Andreas Kolb was second and Lachlan Stevens-McNab third, with Germany's Henri Kiefer in fourth. World champion Jackson Goldstone, meanwhile, went out in qualifying.

Vali Höll: World Cup, a home win and world title number five

In the women's field, there was no way past Vali Höll. The rider from Saalbach (Commencal Schwalbe by Les Orres) won six World Cup races and the overall with 2,220 points – 1,085 clear of Harriet Harnden, with Gracey Hemstreet third. A seventh win would have matched the single-season record held by Anne-Caroline Chausson and Rachel Atherton. Lisa Bouladou stopped that: the 21-year-old French rider took her first World Cup win in Lake Placid, with Höll just under half a second back.

The most emotional win came in June at her home race at Bikepark Leogang. For the first time ever, the elite women raced after the men at a World Cup – as the grand finale of the day. According to the organisers, more than 15,000 fans lined the course on downhill Saturday alone, and Höll won by more than three seconds from Marine Cabirou and Anna Newkirk. It was her third home win in Leogang. In the men's race, Finn Iles edged out Pierron, with Henri Kiefer third.

Worlds in Val di Sole: Höll and Goldstone defend

At the end of August the world championships hit the Black Snake in Val di Sole – 2.3 kilometres and 550 metres of descent on one of the toughest downhill tracks in the world. Höll took her fifth world title in a row, ahead of Switzerland's Lisa Baumann and Harriet Harnden.

In the men's race, Jackson Goldstone defended his rainbow jersey. As the last rider down, he was still behind at the third split and only found the win in the lower section – 0.695 seconds ahead of Stevens-McNab. Jordan Williams missed second place by just seven thousandths, and Vermette finished fourth. The junior titles went to Tilly Boadle and Switzerland's Raoul Schneeberger.

Enduro: Dailly, Conolly – and two German world champions

The Enduro World Cup ended in mid-August in Morillon, France. Adrien Dailly won the race there and flipped the overall standings: he passed Lief Rodgers and took the title by 43 points, with Ryan Gilchrist third. In the women's race Morgane Charre won, while Ella Conolly defended her overall title – 220 points ahead of Mélanie Pugin.

The world championships in Finale Ligure in mid-October were the last big enduro race of the year. Ryan Gilchrist led from the first stage to the last and became world champion, 4.9 seconds ahead of Elliot Jamieson and Richie Rude. In the women's race, Germany's Raphaela Richter won her first world title – just 1.575 seconds ahead of Isabeau Courdurier after six stages and more than 40 minutes of racing. And in E-Enduro another German, Helen Weber, took gold, while Adrien Dailly defended his men's title.

It's the end of an era for enduro: from 2027 the discipline is no longer part of the World Cup – only the world championships remain. Crankworx has already announced plans for a new enduro series, and an initiative called Enduro United is working on its own tour. What 2027 looks like is still open.

The races closer to home

The World Cup is one thing – but most races in the German-speaking Alps in 2026 were smaller and open to everyone. You'll find them all in the Lemoyn event calendar:

• Austrian Gravity Series – six rounds, from the Schöckl in May to the final in Leogang on 4 October.

• iXS Downhill Cup – six races, including Willingen, Semmering and Ilmenau, with the final in Bellwald.

• iXS European Downhill Cup – seven rounds across Europe, from Portugal to Maribor.

• PROPAIN Rookies Cup – the youth downhill series with five stops, final in Winterberg.

• Enduro One – six rounds in Germany, final in Bad Endbach.

We'll add the 2027 dates as soon as the organisers announce them.

Ride the World Cup yourself

The best thing about downhill: the pros' tracks are open to you. In Leogang the World Cup line is the Speedster – 2.6 kilometres, 468 metres of descent, black. Which other World Cup tracks you can ride and how hard they really are is in our piece World Cup Tracks You Can Actually Ride. And where the lifts are still running is in our 2026 closing dates overview.

What was the biggest moment of the season for you – Vermette's title, Höll's home win or Richter's world title?