Laura Stigger (Austria) and Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) lead the pack (Image credit: Getty Images)
At her fourth and final Olympic Games, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France) finally claimed the cross-country mountain bike gold medal at Paris 2024 which has long eluded her with a sensational solo win on home French soil at Élancourt Hill.
The highly-decorated multi-discipline superstar attacked away with brutal pace on the second lap up the main climb of the 4.4km course southwest of Paris, leaving Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) and Loana Lecomte (France) in her dust and dominating the whole day right to the line.
It was an emotional completion of a career goal for Ferrand-Prévot, who crossed the line in tears, welcomed home by a singing French crowd who saw their hero achieve her dream and take France’s second gold medal of Paris 2024.
Pieterse looked set to take the silver medal as Lecomte faded behind and eventually crashed out of the race, however, a puncture did for the young Dutch star’s chances on lap five and forced her into a rear-wheel change where a chasing group caught her.
In her ever-composed style, Ferrand-Prévot oozed class as she put in consistent laps around the 12-minute mark to extend her lead throughout the seven-lap race, finishing with a giant winning margin of 2:57 over Hayley Batten (USA) who took a great silver medal after a thrilling battle with Jenny Rissveds (Sweden).
Despite being a 12-time World Champion across road, mountain bike, cyclocross and gravel racing, an Olympic medal of any colour has managed to go amiss throughout Ferrand-Prévot’s illustrious career.
On Sunday and in one of her final mountain bike races before turning her focus back to road racing, the 32-year-old has put that right and in the best way possible in front of adoring home French crowds and to cheers of ‘Pauline! Pauline’ throughout the 1:26:02-long effort in the French sunshine.
“It’s hard to say, I prepared so hard for that day and not since a few months, it's like years and years of hard work. It’s my fourth Olympics and I never ever perform and today was just everything for the gold medal,” said Ferrand-Prévot after the finish. “I can say the goal of my life and today I won it and it’s just incredible.
“I think I raced the same as I raced all the world cups. I didn't add emotion, I just did my own race and tried to go full gas in the uphill and smooth in the downhill and recover. I was on a mission.”
Huge crowds roared on their star throughout the 4.4km and seven laps, however, Ferrand-Prévot admitted she was so locked in on the task at hand that she couldn’t hear them until she released emotion at the finish.
“To be honest, during the race, I didn’t hear anything, I was so focused. But now it’s super nice,” she said.
“It was an amazing feeling. You feel strong, you can push super hard and can suffer, it’s just amazing.”
How it unfolded
Martina Berta (Italy) kicked off the action best on the opening lap, exploding off the line ahead of the favourites as she tends to do, with Lecomte and Ferrand-Prévot not far behind and moving into the lead on the climb as the French showed their strength at home.
Pieterse followed closely behind as young Austrian star Laura Stigger took over to keep the racing under control on lap one. Quickly a lead quartet was established by the French duo, Pieterse and Stigger, with Berta trying to chase behind alongside the likes of Rio 2016 champion Jenny Rissveds (Sweden).
The strong quartet would continue to build a lead throughout the first 4.4km lap, sticking together over the two main climbs and throughout the rock gardens that lined the man-made course.
A 12:21 opening lap would be followed by six more repetitions of the course, with Lecomte leading the quartet over the start/finish line until Pieterse decided to up the pace on the climb, causing Stigger to start dropping.
The Dutchwoman was countered by what would eventually be the race-winning move, as Ferrand-Prévot switched into a huge gear and ate up the metres to crest the climb with a big gap on her compatriot Lecomte and Pieterse.
Ferrand-Prévot continued her assault to the delight of the French crowds, extending what was an 18-second gap at the first split point on lap two, out to 29 and 35 seconds respectively over Pieterse and Lecomte as she started lap three.
After completing lap two in an infernal time of 11:45, Ferrand-Prévot followed this up with a 12:09 to extend her gap out north of a minute to her two chasers.
The race for bronze and silver was closing down behind as Batten came into her own on the second and third lap alongside Stigger and Rissveds, crossing the line at the start of lap four just 17 seconds back on a faltering Lecomte.
Things got worse for Lecomte on lap four when a heavy crash through the rock garden saw led to her being stretchered away from the course, however, despite losing consciousness momentarily, she is OK according to reports in French media at the time of writing.
This meant the likes of Batten, Rissveds and Alexandra Keller (Switzerland) were suddenly in the fight for bronze, which would soon become the fight for silver when an untimely puncture for Pieterse on lap five saw those behind realising second was on the cards.
The Dutch mechanics did as good a job as possible to change Pieterse’s rear wheel, but what was a 30-second gap on the chasing group, disappeared as she struggled on the long descent and became a 30-second deficit after the change.
Rissveds and Batten established themselves as the strongest on the climb at the start of lap six, dropping Keller and Stigger behind, with Evie Richards (Great Britain) and Pieterse closing in quickly behind.
As Ferrand-Prévot stayed safe to arrive home at the line in emotional fashion to huge chants from the home crowds, Batten made her move on the second key climb of the lap. The American got a small gap on the Swedish former Olympic Champion and held her off on the descent to take a top class silver medal.
James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.
