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Olympic MTB gallery: two golden days

The Paris Olympics delivered joy and heartbreak, crashes and controversy, and brilliant racing in the men's and women's events.

Joe Lindsey
by Joe Lindsey 29.07.2024 Photography by
Zac Williams & Cor Vos
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Almost 30 years after mountain bike racing made its debut as an Olympic sport, much has changed for cross-country racing: The bikes are vastly better, for one, and the courses are far different. And you don’t have to change your own flat tires anymore, much to Tom Pidcock’s gratitude.

Both the women’s race on Sunday and the men’s event Monday were action-packed affairs, even if they played out far different. The men saw a tense duel for gold only decided in the final section of punchy singletrack, while for the women it was the silver-medal battle that animated the race. In both, there were tears of joy and heartbreak, crashes and controversy, and edge-of-your seat racing. Zac Williams and Cor Vos captured some of the most memorable moments from two golden days of action.

But one thing hasn’t changed: it remains one of the most exciting sports at the Games. No preliminary heats, no last-chance qualifiers: just 36 men and 36 women and around 90 minutes of all-out racing to decide who goes home with the hardware and who’s left waiting another four years.

Loana Lecomte, Puck Pieterse, and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot charge off the start line in the XCO at the Paris Olympics.
Three top favorites led out the start as France’s Loana Lecomte and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot sandwiched Puck Pieterse of the Netherlands.
Loana Lecomte rides the rock garden section early in the XCO at the Paris Games.
Lecomte, an excellent descender who won on the ferociously technical Crans-Montana course last month, briefly led but a hard mid-race crash in the rock garden left her with a concussion and a DNF.
Puck Pieterse drops a log ladder after the rock garden section.
Pieterse was hard on the chase after Ferrand-Prévot went clear and was comfortably alone in second when disaster struck in the form of a rear flat and a slow wheel change.
Haley Batten bends low over her handlebars as she pushes the pace on a gravel section. Jenny Rissveds is right on her wheel, head down and intently focused.
Haley Batten (USA) and 2016 gold medalist Jenny Rissveds (Sweden) formed a tight, evenly matched chase group. After dropping Austria’s Laura Stigger, the pair would fight it out over silver.
Pauline Ferrand-Prevot rides a bridge flyover as fans line the course and raise their phones to film her.
Up front, Ferrand-Prévot was simply untouchable, building a lead of three minutes.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot launches a rocky drop in the woods next to a five-ring Olympic symbol.
One of the few top riders on a hardtail, Ferrand-Prévot looked completely comfortable and in control on the few technical sections on the Elancourt Hill course.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot rides to the finish line as masses of fans lean over the barriers and wave French flags in an explosion of color.
“It’s my fourth Olympics, and I never, never, ever perform,” said Ferrand-Prévot, referencing her disappointment from Tokyo, where she was 10th. But in her last race and in front of the home crowd, she delivered arguably her finest-ever ride.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot briefly looks back in the finish stretch of the XCO at the Paris Olympics. Huge numbers of fans line both sides of the course, many waving flags, as she rolls over white gravel to the finish line.
A brief look back, but Ferrand-Prévot was more than safely clear. Or perhaps she was just looking back on her glittering off-road career before she switches to skinny tires to target the 2025 Tour de France Femmes?
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot throws her arms wide as she approaches the line. Paris 2024 is on a large finish gantry and a phalanx of photographers awaits her arrival as fans cheer.
Soaking it all in, one last time.
Haley Batten punches the air as she rides to the finish for second place at the Paris Olympics. She has a wide smile on her face.
Meanwhile Batten, who like Pieterse had a flat, had chased back on and dropped Rissveds with a hard acceleration in the woods just before the finish. Her silver medal is the highest ever achieved by an American mountain biker. Rissveds soloed in just behind for bronze.
Jenny Rissveds, dressed in a dark blue tracksuit with a Swedish flag, leans over to hug Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on the medal stand. Ferrand-Prévot, in a white tracksuit with French tricolore trim, has her hand over her mouth and is openly crying.
Ferrand-Prévot was overcome with emotion on the medal stand, going out as a gold medalist on home soil. We can’t say enough about Rissveds’ empathy and class. Earlier in the race, she called out to Batten’s mechanics to alert them to her competitor’s flat, and the two shared a long, emotional embrace at the finish. It’s easy to be cynical about the Olympic ideal of sportsmanship and the brotherhood/sisterhood of sports, but on Sunday especially, the respected and accomplished Rissveds embodied both.

Men's mountain bike racers charge up the hill at the start of the XCO at the Paris Olympics.
On Monday in the men’s race, it was an equally furious charge for the holeshot, even with just 36 riders instead of the usual 80+ for a World Cup.
Riley Amos drives his bike into a corner early in the race in a wooded section.
American Riley Amos – a 22-year-old U23 rider racing for the first time against some of this field – got the initial jump and would eventually finish seventh – the best-ever for an American male. Read our profile of the young American talent.
Tom Pidcock and Victor Koretzky drop the rock garden section on an early lap of the Paris XCO.
But it was reigning Olympic champ Tom Pidcock and home-country favorite Victor Koretzky who got clear of the chase on lap three.
Alan Hatherly takes the B-line through the rock garden as Charlie Aldridge opts for the faster but more technical A-line just behind.
When Pidcock suffered a flat that knocked him out of the lead duo, South Africa’s Alan Hatherly, whose first-ever elite World Cup XCO win three weeks ago in Les Gets signaled his form, chased solo in second, pursued by Great Britain’s Charlie Aldridge.
Nino Schurter drops the log ladder with Simon Andreassen on his wheel.
Rio Olympic champion and bazillion-time (OK, 36-time) World Cup winner Nino Schurter had an uncharacteristically off day, including a near-crash in the rock garden, and finished 9th.
Tom Pidcock accelerates out of the saddle on a wide gravel section under blazing sun. Just behind you can barely make out the green shoulders of Alan Hatherly's South African jersey.
Wheel changed, Pidcock mounted a furious chase through the pursuers, who had caught Hatherly. When Pidcock attacked, only Hatherly could match his pace.
Victor Koretzky climbs alone on the same section of course, head down in concentration.
Ahead, Koretzky plowed a lonely furrow in first, but Pidcock’s inexorable chase narrowed the gap at every time split.
Tom Pidcock leads Victor Koretzky through a rocky section in the woods.
Pidcock eventually shed Hatherly and caught Koretzky. For more than a lap the two leaders traded wicked attacks. Koretzky accelerated hard near the top of the course, but Pidcock fought back on as an almost imperceptible bobble cost Koretzky time.
Tom Pidcock crosses the finish line with arms raised to a large crowd.
A vicious acceleration in the final wooded section gave Pidcock the inside line, and a touch of handlebars made Koretzky bobble as the defending champ surged ahead to a close solo win (to, we might note, some booing from the partisan crowd).
Victor Koretzky makes the heart symbol with both hands as he turns to face the crowd, his back to the camera and "France" in large block letters on his white tracksuit.
The difference between gold and silver? Maybe one small bobble, and a line choice that opened the door for Pidcock, but Koretzky had nothing but love on the podium for an appreciative home crowd.
Tom Pidcock bites his Olympic gold medal as he poses for pictures with his family, gathered around him.
For Pidcock, the win cements his rep as the best big-event racer in the sport: he doesn’t race off-road that much, but he has a world title, European title, and seven World Cup XCO wins (in 11 rounds) since he moved to the elite ranks in 2021.

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