Valentina Höll: Austria's downhill super talent

She seems so sweet and inconspicuous, but on the pi-ste she lets it all hang out, the reigning junior world champion Valentina Höll in the downhill discipline. If you look at the past racing season objectively and examine the UCI's list of results, you'll be amazed. She won all seven Downhill World Cups in 2018, in the junior category mind you, she is only 17 years old, and on top of that she won the gold medal at the World Championships. In the juniors, she is the measure of all things in terms of her performances, no one can keep up with her. Her opponents in her class arrive at the finish line 10, 20 or more than 45 seconds after her. She is already so good that she can keep up with the top 10 best downhillers in the world. If her times had been for the women's elite, she would have made the podium in the World Cup in La Bresse or finished 8th at the World Championships, a top 10 finish is actually already assured for her, if that's enough for her. Even from the current number 1 in women's downhill, the British Rachel Atherton, there's only praise. "Vali," she says, "is an incredible girl. I've followed her career since she was 11 years old, and you can see how passionate she is about what she does. To see someone so good and technically mature at that age is...