As Gracey Hemstreet competed in her third Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup for downhill mountain biking this year, the Sechelt teen is keeping a strong hold on the podium.
Over the weekend of June 10 to 12, Hemstreet raced in Austria, where she ended up third on the podium. Great Britain's Phoebe Gale had been riding consistently in second place behind Hemstreet this season, and managed to secure gold with a time of 4:28.749. Jenna Hastings of New Zealand took second place with 4:42.853. Hemstreet was close behind with a final time of 4:43.949, after slipping in the mud.
"The first day was super fun," Hemstreet told Coast Reporter. "It didn't rain too much, and then the floodgates just opened. It was pretty wet, but the top sections stayed OK for the race run, and then the woods were just crazy — super wet."
Once she reached the lower woods after the steeps, Hemstreet slid out under the tape and had to climb back up to the track. When she tried to clip into her bike, her shoes were too muddy from the climb, and she lost precious time. But she was still on pace to secure a spot on the podium.
In a post on Instagram, Hemstreet wrote, “Leogang you were definitely a challenge!! My race run didn’t exactly go to plan, crashed in the woods and it all went sideways from there but thats how she goes sometimes.” She also congratulated Gale “for smashing it.”
“Onto the next.”
In the junior men’s division, Squamish rider Jackson Goldstone brought home silver with a time of 3:43.318.
When asked about racing against strong competitors like Pheobe Gale, Hemstreet said, "It's super cool. Last year, I only did three races and she was beating me and then this year, it turned around. It's definitely tight competition this year."
It was Hemstreet’s fourth World Cup race. At the end of the 2021 season, she ended her first World Cup with silver. She started 2022 off strong with back-to-back golds in Lourdes, France, and Fort William, Scotland. Her Lourdes win made her the first Canadian junior woman to win a World Cup in downhill mountain biking.
While Hemstreet won't race in Crankworx Innsbruck this month, she'll be at round 4 of the World Cup races in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, in July.
