Whistler mountain biker Finn Iles continued his red hot start to the season with a second-place finish at the 2022 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill in Lenzerheide, Switzerland last weekend.
Iles now has two seconds and a sixth across the three World Cup races he's competed in so far. He also added an additional second-place finish at Crankworx Innsbruck last month.
Iles' two second-place finishes are the first World Cup podiums of his career since moving into the Elite category in 2018. His previous best marks were a trio of fourth-place finishes in West Virginia in 2021, Maribor in 2020 and Fort William in 2019.
Iles currently sits fourth in World Cup overall points rankings with 501 points, 329 back of leader Amaury Pierron's 830 points.
Also in Lenzerheide, Squamish's Jackson Goldstone continued his dominance of the Junior World Cup circuit claiming his second World Cup gold and fourth podium finish of the season. Across seven races in 2022, including four World Cups, a NW Cup and a British National Series race, Goldstone hasn't finished lower than second.
Goldstone's time of 2:50.072 would have been good enough for seventh-place in the Elite category. He currently sits in top spot on the Junior World Cup overall rankings with 220 points.
Competing alongside Goldstone in the Junior category for the first time this season was Whistler's own Wei Tien Ho. Coming off a third-place finish at the BC Cup a few weeks ago, Ho achieved his goal of landing in the top-10 in Lenzerheide with a sixth-place finish. Trailing Ho by a few seconds was Pemberton's Tegan Cruz in 13th place.
If Goldstone's performance so far this year can be described as dominant, the Sunshine Coast's Gracey Hemstreet has been even more so on the Junior Women's side of things.
Already with two firsts and a third through three World Cup races before last weekend's event, Hemstreet added some more gold to her collection in Lenzerheide. Her winning time of 3:28.111 would have been good enough for a top-10 finish in the Elite category as well.
Hemstreet also sits in the top spot on the Junior World Cup overall rankings with 225 points, 15 more than Phoebe Gale in second.
Next stop for the local World Cup athletes is Vallnord - Pal Arinsal, Andorra On July 15.
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