Asa Vermette’s steady progress in the men’s junior downhill World Cup continued on Sunday. The Durango native secured his third consecutive podium with his second-place finish in La Thuile, Italy, on Sunday.
The men’s junior downhill world champion has had the opposite start to his men’s junior downhill season in 2025 compared to 2024. Last year, he won the first two races and was on the podium for four of the first five rounds.
Unfortunately for Vermette, the good vibes ended after that when he crashed in Loudenvielle, France, on Sept. 8 and fractured his vertebrae, ending his World Cup season.
This year has been a more gradual buildup. He was off the podium in the first two races after crashes, but hasn’t crashed since and had his best result of the season on Sunday with his second-place finish.
“It went good,” Vermette said. “It was a smooth weekend. The track was probably one of the most fun tracks all year so far. It was super steep and there were some cool, big features on it too; there were a couple of road gaps. The race went good. I got first in qualifying and I was just feeling good on the track.”
Vermette finished the 2.3-kilometer track in three minutes and 29.834 seconds. France’s Till Alran finished first in 3:28.265 and New Zealand’s Tyler Waite finished third in 3:33.005.
Throughout the season and in his men’s junior downhill career, Vermette has built up his runs by easing into the first split and dominating the middle splits. Not on Sunday.
Vermette came out of the starting gate with a lot of speed and was 0.15 seconds up on Alran after the first split. Vermette knew he’d lost some time at the top of the runs in the past few events and emphasized changing that.
Also, unlike past events, Vermette made some mistakes in the middle splits, which cost him time to Alran. He hit a big compression, which threw him off line. There was also a sketchy gap in the middle of the run that most people avoided to get exit speed out of the corner before the gap. Vermette jumped in the gap and lost time.
Alran was a second faster through the third split and was up by 1.5 seconds after the fourth split.
“He had a really good run,” Vermette said about Alran. “If I fixed a couple of my mistakes down at the bottom, I would have been closer and the same. I can't really say anything because I didn't. But, I'd like to think that if I had my perfect run, I'd be able to win.”
Vermette really enjoyed the La Thuile course and it reminded him of the Purgatory World Cup track with the course’s different shelves. It was also super dusty and loose at La Thuile, like it is in Durango.
The next men’s junior downhill event is at Pal Arinsal in Andorra this weekend. Vermette is fourth in the men’s junior downhill standings. Till Alran leads with 228 points, followed by Tyler Waite in second with 220 points. Max Alran is third with 219 points and Vermette is fourth with 197 points.
“ (This year) personally, I'm doing better,” Vermette said. “Maybe not in the results or whatever, but for my riding and stuff; staying healthy through the entire weekend, building up into the race run, having fun on the track and then starting to get speed up. I'm stoked on that. The goal is to finish a whole season this year.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
