Your 2024 UCI World Cup Downhill Champion, Loic Bruni, runs through his thoughts on the changes coming to next year’s World Cup series.
There’s been a lot of talk about the changes coming to top tier racing next year, but until now we’ve not seen much chat from the riders themselves. SuperBruni gives his take on what 2025 will look like.
Whilst it’s easy to deride WBD and the UCI, most of which seems to relate to the coverage element, Bruni is more interested in how the changes will affect his racing, possibly because he’s busy when the races are on… Who’d have thought.
Overall, Bruni is positive about the changes, certainly about what will likely be smaller lift queues and tracks holding up better, to development teams attached to World Series teams and a less tiring schedule due to qualifying changes.
He questions why there’s no races in July and August though, with some races in shoulder seasons where the temperatures drop, with some races squeezed into back-to-back weekends, eating into recovery time. Also, podium bonus structures will change with the 3-person podiums, and reduce the chance of up-and-comers getting on the box like Bruni did, landing a 5th spot in Windham.
Bruni also looks to defend his overall title with hopes to match Vouilloz and Gwin’s tallies, get better in the wet to redeem himself at Les Gets and put aside the Andorra heartache by winning back the stripes. He’d also like to see races head to Japan, South America and the mountains of Africa, but questions whether the high organisational fees are putting a lot of potential venues off.
