Inside Vali Höll's transition to elite downhill racing, and the pressures that come with young stardom
Vali Höll’s new documentary with Red Bull, called “Past, Present, Future,” was three years in the making. Production began in 2018, when she won the first of two junior world championships, with the goal of documenting her highly anticipated jump to elite downhill racing. Due to a global pandemic, that debut was delayed until 2021, when the RockShox Trek rider took second in her first ever elite World Cup race.
The long scope of the 35-minute documentary means that we get to see some of the highest highs and lowest lows of Vali’s young career. As it turns out, being a teenage phenom is a lot of pressure. In the documentary, we see Vali place high expectations on herself to perform well in front of a home Austrian crowd at the 2020 World Championship in Leogang, where she won qualifications (high) before crashing on a jump during a practice run and missing her chance at a gold medal (low).
You can watch the first part of the documentary in the embed below, and the full documentary on the Red Bull website.
Vali is searching for her first elite World Cup win after a close call during her return trip to Leogang this past June. She is expected to take on the World Cup event in Maribor from August 14-15 against the best women’s riders in the sport.
Given how fast Vali has risen in downhill racing, it’s easy to forget that she was splitting her time between training and completing her high school studies not long ago. Even if you weren’t a big Vali fan already, the documentary should make you amped to see what she does next.
