Mountain biking returns to the Olympic Video games for an eighth consecutive time, with the cross-country medals determined on the Élancourt Hill venue exterior Paris for elite girls on Saturday, July 28, a day earlier than the boys.
A forecast of rain may change the complexity of the course for the ladies prefer it did three years in the past on the Tokyo Video games, which left many of the favourites properly behind a Swiss podium sweep led by Jolanda Neff.
The ladies’s race is extensive open this outing as Neff lately withdrew on account of a lingering sickness, leaving Alessandra Keller as the one Swiss rider this time. Keller might be one of many favourites, as she is the chief within the UCI World Cup XCO rankings by the primary six races.
Her prime competitors will come from a pair of French riders, world champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and world’s silver medalist Loana Lecomte in addition to Dutch rider Puck Pieterse and the US duo of Haley Batten and Savilia Blunk.
There are 36 riders on the beginning record for Saturday, which is identical quantity for males on Sunday. Within the inaugural look of XCO within the Olympic Video games in 1996 in Atlanta, there have been 27 girls within the race versus 38 males. Paola Pezzo of Italy received the primary girls’s gold medal, with a second victory 4 years later in Sydney, she stays the one two-time Olympic XCO winner.
The races will happen at Élancourt Hill and on a 4.4km course that features twisting gravel paths, a technical rock backyard and a difficult climb. After a gap lap of two.2km, which avoids the one main climb, there might be a number of passes on the primary circuit, with 110 metres of elevation achieve every time. The very best level of the course affords views within the distance of the Eiffel Tower, which is positioned about 25km away.
Paris Olympics girls’s mountain bike favourites
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Loana Lecomte (France)
Loana Lecomte (left) accepts the XCO silver medal at UCI Mountain Bike World Championships alongside France teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, who received gold (Picture credit score: Alex Broadway/SWpix.com)
France may simply land each riders, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Loana Lecomte, on the house podium, and both may take the gold. The 2 rocketed throughout final 12 months’s Glasgow World Championships XCO course to go one-two, Ferrand-Prévot incomes rainbow stripes for a fifth time in MTB. She additionally has world titles throughout a number of biking disciplines in her storied profession – cyclocross, gravel, street and marathon mountain bike.
That is Ferrand-Prévot’s last season competing in mountain biking, as she is going to flip her focus again to street racing. She completed tenth in Tokyo within the XCO race, however the driving motivation this time at her fourth Video games is to be “Olympic champion at dwelling”. She has solely competed at two World Cup occasions this 12 months, Nové Město and Val De Sole, however received each instances.
Lecomte has a single victory on the World Cup circuit this 12 months at Crans-Montana, and skipped the Les Will get spherical in early July for a coaching camp within the mountains. She was a dominate winner final 12 months on the mountain bike Take a look at Occasion at Élancourt Hill, Ferrand-Prévot ending third.
Together with her silver medal behind Ferrand-Prévot on the World Championships, Lecomte has proved she will carry out properly on the large stage, giving France choices for the gold.
Puck Pieterse (Netherlands)
Puck Pieterse on her method to third place in cross-country race at 2023 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships (Picture credit score: Thomas Maheux/SWpix.com)
Puck Pieterse is a rising star throughout a number of disciplines in biking, together with a previous U23 world champion in cyclocross and the reigning European champion in cross-country MTB at simply 22 years of age. She is ranked second within the World Cup standings of XCO, boosted by her win within the last tune-up for the Olympic Video games in Les Will get, France, crusing away for a solo victory greater than two minutes forward of chasers.
She had two years remaining to race on the U23 degree in MTB, however determined to maneuver to the elite degree final 12 months along with her sights set on Paris, and it paid dividends. On the World Championships final 12 months she earned the bronze behind the French duo of Ferrand-Prévot and Lecomte. She seems to be to be the primary girls’s rider from The Netherlands to earn a medal of any color on the Olympic Video games in mountain biking.
Haley Batten and Savilia Blunk (USA)
Haley Batten on the Cross-country Take a look at Occasion in 2023 (Picture credit score: Thomas SAMSON / AFP / Getty Pictures)
Just like the house French workforce, Workforce USA brings double firepower to the cross-country with Haley Batten and Savilia Blunk, ranked third and fourth, respectively within the World Cup rankings. Batten makes her second Olympic look, ending ninth in Tokyo, whereas Blunk makes her debut.
Batten has three podiums this World Cup season, together with a victory at Araxá, Brazil. Blunk received the brief observe race in Les Will get, and has three podiums in cross-country.
It has been 12 years because the US has come away with a bronze medal on the Olympic Video games in mountain biking, and each Batten and Blunk wish to make historical past with a first-time gold.
Alessandra Keller (Switzerland)
Alessandra Keller (Switzerland) at Cross-country Take a look at Occasion in 2023 (Picture credit score: THOMAS SAMSON / AFP through Getty ImagesGetty Pictures)
Born the identical 12 months that mountain biking made its entry into the Olympic Video games, Alessandra Keller involves Paris because the UCI World Cup chief in cross-country. She received the ladies’s U23 world championship in 2018, and has completed fifth the final two years at Worlds within the elite race.
Whereas she leads the World Cup rankings this season on account of consistency – three World Sequence podiums and three prime 10s – she doesn’t have a victory on the lengthy programs but, solely taking a pair of victories within the brief observe competitions. With Neff out of the race now, she should take advantage of her solo endeavour.
When is the Paris Olympics girls’s mountain bike cross nation?
The ladies’s race begins on July 28 at 14:10 CET or 8:10 EDT. Learn the way to look at biking on the Paris Olympics
