At her fourth and closing Olympic Video games, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France) lastly claimed the cross-country mountain bike gold medal at Paris 2024 which has lengthy eluded her with a sensational solo win on dwelling French soil at Élancourt Hill.
The highly-decorated multi-discipline celebrity attacked away with brutal tempo on the second lap up the primary climb of the 4.4km course southwest of Paris, leaving Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) and Loana Lecomte (France) in her mud and dominating the entire day proper to the road.
It was an emotional completion of a profession objective for Ferrand-Prévot, who crossed the road in tears, welcomed dwelling by a singing French crowd who noticed their hero obtain her dream and take France’s second gold medal of Paris 2024.
Pieterse seemed set to take the silver medal as Lecomte pale behind and finally crashed out of the race, nonetheless, a puncture did for the younger Dutch star’s probabilities on lap 5 and compelled her right into a rear-wheel change the place a chasing group caught her.
In her ever-composed fashion, Ferrand-Prévot oozed class as she put in constant laps across the 12-minute mark to increase her lead all through the seven-lap race, ending with a large profitable margin of two:57 over Hayley Batten (USA) who took a fantastic silver medal after an exciting battle with Jenny Rissveds (Sweden).
Regardless of being a 12-time World Champion throughout highway, mountain bike, cyclocross and gravel racing, an Olympic medal of any color has managed to go amiss all through Ferrand-Prévot’s illustrious profession.
On Sunday and in certainly one of her closing mountain bike races earlier than turning her focus again to highway racing, the 32-year-old has put that proper and in one of the simplest ways doable in entrance of adoring dwelling French crowds and to cheers of ‘Pauline! Pauline’ all through the 1:26:02-long effort within the French sunshine.
“It’s arduous to say, I ready so arduous for that day and never since a couple of months, it is like years and years of arduous work. It’s my fourth Olympics and I by no means ever carry out and at present was simply every part for the gold medal,” stated Ferrand-Prévot after the end. “I can say the objective of my life and at present I received it and it’s simply unbelievable.
“I believe I raced the identical as I raced all of the world cups. I did not add emotion, I simply did my very own race and tried to go full fuel within the uphill and clean within the downhill and recuperate. I used to be on a mission.”
Enormous crowds roared on their star all through the 4.4km and 7 laps, nonetheless, Ferrand-Prévot admitted she was so locked in on the duty at hand that she couldn’t hear them till she launched emotion on the end.
“To be sincere, throughout the race, I didn’t hear something, I used to be so targeted. However now it’s tremendous good,” she stated.
“It was an incredible feeling. You are feeling robust, you may push tremendous arduous and may undergo, it’s simply superb.”
The way it unfolded
Martina Berta (Italy) kicked off the motion greatest on the opening lap, exploding off the road forward of the favourites as she tends to do, with Lecomte and Ferrand-Prévot not far behind and shifting into the lead on the climb because the French confirmed their energy at dwelling.
Pieterse adopted intently behind as younger Austrian star Laura Stigger took over to maintain the racing underneath management on lap one. Shortly a lead quartet was established by the French duo, Pieterse and Stigger, with Berta making an attempt to chase behind alongside the likes of Rio 2016 champion Jenny Rissveds (Sweden).
The robust quartet would proceed to construct a lead all through the primary 4.4km lap, sticking collectively over the 2 important climbs and all through the rock gardens that lined the man-made course.
A 12:21 opening lap could be adopted by six extra repetitions of the course, with Lecomte main the quartet over the beginning/end line till Pieterse determined to up the tempo on the climb, inflicting Stigger to begin dropping.
The Dutchwoman was countered by what would finally be the race-winning transfer, as Ferrand-Prévot switched into an enormous gear and ate up the metres to crest the climb with an enormous hole on her compatriot Lecomte and Pieterse.
Ferrand-Prévot continued her assault to the delight of the French crowds, extending what was an 18-second hole on the first break up level on lap two, out to 29 and 35 seconds respectively over Pieterse and Lecomte as she began lap three.
After finishing lap two in an infernal time of 11:45, Ferrand-Prévot adopted this up with a 12:09 to increase her hole out north of a minute to her two chasers.
The race for bronze and silver was closing down behind as Batten got here into her personal on the second and third lap alongside Stigger and Rissveds, crossing the road at first of lap 4 simply 17 seconds again on a faltering Lecomte.
Issues obtained worse for Lecomte on lap 4 when a heavy crash via the rock backyard noticed led to her being stretchered away from the course, nonetheless, regardless of shedding consciousness momentarily, she is OK in keeping with stories in French media on the time of writing.
This meant the likes of Batten, Rissveds and Alexandra Keller (Switzerland) had been all of a sudden within the struggle for bronze, which might quickly turn out to be the struggle for silver when an premature puncture for Pieterse on lap 5 noticed these behind realising second was on the playing cards.
The Dutch mechanics did nearly as good a job as doable to alter Pieterse’s rear wheel, however what was a 30-second hole on the chasing group, disappeared as she struggled on the lengthy descent and have become a 30-second deficit after the change.
Rissveds and Batten established themselves because the strongest on the climb at first of lap six, dropping Keller and Stigger behind, with Evie Richards (Nice Britain) and Pieterse closing in rapidly behind.
As Ferrand-Prévot stayed secure to reach dwelling on the line in emotional vogue to very large chants from the house crowds, Batten made her transfer on the second key climb of the lap. The American obtained a small hole on the Swedish former Olympic Champion and held her off on the descent to take a high class silver medal.
Outcomes
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