Valentina
Höll
Austria
·
MTB
Date of birth | 11 December 2001 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Salzburg |
Age | 24 |
Nationality | Austria |
Career start | 2013 |
Disciplines | Mountainbike Downhill |
It's fair to say that Vali Höll's bike career started a few years earlier than average: she took part in her first race as a three-year-old. She didn't win that one, but she's not been short of victories ever since. 10 years later, the then 13-year-old signed a six-year contract with YT Industries and the Forchheim-based bike manufacturers haven't regretted that decision for a moment.
The perfect junior season
In 2018, aged 16, she arrived on the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup scene, already able to look back on a raft of rookie titles, and didn't look out of place from the word go. A confident race in Lošinj, Croatia, saw her win the Women's Junior category with a time that placed her sixth overall among the Elites. Vali carried that winning form throughout the rest of 2018, going on a winning streak that saw her win every single Junior Downhill World Cup race to be crowned overall champion and then claim her first ever UCI MTB World Championships victory in Lenzerheide, Switzerland to complete the perfect season.
2019 was almost as impressive, with only a pair of second-place finishes across the season breaking up the sea of gold, as Vali again dominated to complete another World Cup and World Championships double.
World Cup and World Championships success
The following year saw her dominate Crankworx Downhill at Innsbruck, in Austria. Then, in 2021, after enduring a dificult start to her rookie season among the elites, she finished strongly with two thrilling race wins at the doubleheader finale in Snowshoe, USA, to take the overall World Cup title at the first attempt.
In 2022, she crushed the competition at Crankworx Innsbruck once again before becoming the first Austrian downhill world champion as she dominated the rest of the field at the UCI MTB World Championships in Les Gets, France – a feat she repeated in Fort William, Scotland, in 2023 to become a two-time world champ, before wrapping up the the overall title for the second time in just three years a couple of weeks latter.
Cementing her status as the current Queen of all things downhill, Vali stormed to her World Championships hat-trick and a third-straight Elite Women's world title in Pal Arinsal, Andorra, in the summer of 2024, before claiming her third outright UCI Downhill World Cup title a few weeks later in Loudenvielle, France, with two rounds of the season still to go.
Four in a row
In 2025, she secured her fourth World Championships gold medal in a row at Champéry, Switzerland, and also claimed her first World Cup win in over a year to thrill the crowd at Lake Placid.
"It took me way too long to win again. It has been a long year, many downs and a few ups so it's been pretty amazing that I could finally pull it off."
Four-time downhill world champ Vali Höll
© Graeme Murray/The Red Bulletin
Vali Höll raced to another podium in front of her home Leogang crowd
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
World champ Vali Höll got her first taste of Red Bull Hardline
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
Flying to victory in Poland rocking the rainbow stripes
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool