Items19The creator’s order
- 1
John TomacBorn 3 Nov 1967Cross-country and downhill. In the early 1990s Tomac won World Cup races and world championship medals in both disciplines, sometimes in the same season, on bikes with little or no suspension. Before the sport split into specialists, he showed that one rider's handling could cover both a climbing…0i - 2
Missy GioveDownhill. Giove won the 1994 world downhill title and a string of World Cup races and overall titles in the 1990s, riding with a full-commitment style that made her one of the sport's first stars. Her runs set the pace for how aggressively women's downhill would be raced.0i - 3
Nicolas VouillozBorn 8 Feb 1976Downhill. The Frenchman won ten world downhill titles across junior and elite ranks in the 1990s and early 2000s, and was known for smooth, precise lines rather than wild speed. He later raced rallies and enduro, so his line choice has been tested on two wheels and four.0i - 4
Anne-Caroline ChaussonBorn 8 Oct 1977Downhill, dual and four-cross, then BMX. Chausson dominated women's gravity racing from the mid-1990s with a large haul of world titles, then won Olympic BMX gold in 2008. Her control over jumps and berms carried across three different gravity formats.0i - 5
Steve PeatBorn 17 Jun 1974Downhill. The Sheffield rider won 17 World Cup races and finally the world title in 2009 at 35, after years of near misses. His tall, loose style on steep, rooty tracks was the model for a generation of British downhillers, and his long wait for the rainbow jersey is part of downhill folklore.0i - 6
Sam Hill (cyclist)Born 21 Jul 1985Downhill, then enduro. Hill won world downhill titles in 2006 and 2007 with a flat-pedal, inside-line style that looked different from everyone else's, then switched to enduro and won the overall Enduro World Series several times. Few riders have been the best in two gravity disciplines.0i - 7
Greg MinnaarBorn 13 Nov 1981Downhill. The South African won world titles in 2003, 2012, 2013 and 2021, the last at 39, an 18-year span unmatched in a discipline that punishes ageing reflexes. His calm, tidy riding through technical sections, rather than outright risk, is the reason he lasted.0i - 8
Rachel AthertonBorn 6 Dec 1987Downhill. Atherton won multiple world titles and, in 2016, every World Cup round plus the world championship, a perfect season. Her strength and body position in steep, rough sections let her ride lines most of the field avoided, and she raised the technical standard of women's downhill.0i - 9
Danny Hart (cyclist)Born 20 Sept 1991Downhill. Hart's 2011 world title run in the mud at Champéry, sliding through off-camber turns with the commentator shouting, is the most replayed run in downhill. He added a second world title in 2016, and both came on wet, slippery tracks where control matters more than raw speed.0i - 10
Aaron GwinBorn 24 Dec 1987Downhill. Gwin won five World Cup overall titles, and in 2015 at Leogang won a World Cup round after his chain snapped at the start, pumping the whole track without pedalling. That run is the clearest demonstration of how much downhill speed comes from technique rather than power.0i
