Paris Olympic Games 2024: France's Pauline Ferrand-Prevot runs away with women's mountain bike cross country gold
ByOli Gent
Updated 28/07/2024 at 15:44 GMT+1
Pauline Ferrand-Prevot continued her hot streak of form to claim an incredible women's cross-country gold medal at Elancourt Hill. The home favourite raced clear of the 36-strong field midway through the second lap and refused to slow, instead speeding further ahead of Dutch rider Puck Pieterse, whose challenge faltered. American Haley Batten and Sweden's Jenny Rissveds took silver and bronze.
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Home favourite Pauline Ferrand-Prevot was the runaway winner of the women’s cross-country event at Elancourt Hill.
Ferrand-Prevot got a strong start alongside Austrian Laura Stigger, compatriot Loana Lecomte and Dutch rider Puck Pieterse, and the Frenchwoman made her move in the middle of the second lap, racing clear and leaving the rest in her wake.
Ferrand-Prevot, who finished 10th at Tokyo 2020, used the raucous French home support fully to her advantage as her lead grew and grew as the race wore on, reaching two minutes and 30 seconds by the end of the fifth lap.
The 32-year-old has been in excellent form over the past year, winning the cross-country world title in 2023, and claiming consecutive World Cups at Nove Mesto and Trentino earlier this year.
Pieterse, the 22-year-old Dutch prodigy, was tipped to be among the medals in Paris, but was forced to focus on her own race as Ferrand-Prevot disappeared into the distance, and the two-time European champion did well to peel clear of Lecomte and the chasing pack to try and cling onto silver.
However, her fatigue was evident as she was caught by American Haley Batten and Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds, with Batten a two-time World Cup winner at Araxa this year leading the charge for second.
She pedalled away from Rissveds, gold medallist at Rio 2016, who took bronze, as Pieterse pulled over in fourth, 23 seconds behind.
Great Britain’s Evie Richards launched a late charge from nowhere in the final laps, but her increased intensity came too late to trouble the medals as the 2021 world champion struggled to break beyond eighth place during the early stages.
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Lecomte led the 32-strong field at the end of the first lap after Stigger had found herself at the front in the early exchanges, but both tired greatly on the rocky terrain, with Lecomte, who lost ground on Pieterse in the battle for second, quickly swallowed up by Batten, Swiss Alessandra Keller, Rissveds and Stigger.
Things would go from bad to worse for the host nation’s second rider, as she crashed awfully on the log descent on the fifth lap, as her bronze medal hopes, which had looked fairly solid throughout the opening laps, quickly disappeared.
But it was all about Ferrand-Prevot, who continued to streak away from Pieterse to clinch gold for France – their first gold in the women’s cross-country since Julie Besset at London 2012 – as she crossed the line amid high emotion, clocking 1:26.02.
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