Paris Olympics 2024: Pauline Ferrand-Prevot picks up third gold medal for host nation

The 32-year-old is competing at the Olympics for the fourth time.

The Paris Olympics 2024 women’s mountain bike race was won by Pauline Ferrand-Prevot of France at Élancourt Hill on Sunday 28 July. It was one of the few major honours missing from her record. 

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s winning time over the cross-country Olympic (XCO) course was 1:26:02. Haley Batten (USA) was second, +2.57, with Jenny Rissveds (SWE) third, +3.02. 

The 36 women, aged 19 to 35, and representing 28 nations, tackled seven laps of the man-made course that featured fast compacted gravel, a wooden drop-off, and tough rock garden features. But none could live with the pace of the French star. 

“I’ve worked so hard for today. And I wanted to go full gas… I felt amazing today. I can’t believe it!” said the new Olympic Champion, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. “I thought ‘it’s not possible, it’s not possible, it’s not me, it’s a dream.’ And I was just so happy to see my parents after the finish line.

“My coach said yesterday, ‘Pauline has to take this race like a normal race’. So I said ‘ok, I will do as if I was in a UCI World Cup.’ I wanted to stay in the wheels… and then push hard and make them suffer. I felt quite strong and went my own pace. It was all about pushing hard on the climbs, and not going slow on the downhills but just trying to recover.” 

Also Read: Paris Olympics 2024: Grace Brown powers to first cycling gold

French rider Loana Lecomte, winner of the test event on the course held in 2023, started fast and was soon joined by her compatriot, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (winner of two of the six UCI World Cup races so far this season), the Netherlands’ Puck Pieterse (2023 UCI World Cup overall winner), and Austria’s Laura Stigger. 

The leading quartet was trailed by other top-class riders including 2016 Olympic Champion Jenny Rissveds, South Africa’s Candice Lill – who later suffered a mechanical – and Italy’s Martina Berta, with UCI World Cup overall leader Alessandra Keller (SUI), Haley Batten and Great Britain’s 2021 UCI World Champion Evie Richards in touch. 

A sharp acceleration on her hardtail bike by 32-year-old Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on lap 2 built a gap of 30-seconds from Pieterse and Lecomte, with the chase group soon a further 20 seconds back. 

Such was the dominance of the athlete who has already won titles of UCI World Champion for road, cyclo-cross, gravel, XCO, mountain bike marathon (XCM), and cross-country short track (XCC), the gap at the front only grew. Lecomte had slipped back to the chasers before crashing on the rock garden descent.

After circulating solo in second position, Pieterse suffered a soft rear tyre and was chased down and passed by Rissveds, Stigger, Batten and Keller at the start of the penultimate lap, 3 minutes behind Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. 25-year-old Batten and 30-year-old Rissveds then worked together to power away and stage their fight for the remaining medals.

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