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PARIS (VN) — America invented mountain biking 40 years in the past when hippies and hipsters took to fat-tire racing on fireplace roads in California and Colorado, but it surely wasn’t till Sunday {that a} U.S. racer gained silver within the Olympic Video games.
Haley Batten, born in 1998, battled again from a damaged wheel early in Sunday’s thrilling race gained by an untouchable Pauline Ferrand-Prévot to complete second, the very best by a U.S. rider in cross-country since MTB grew to become a medal sport in 1996.
“I visualized ending with the medal round my neck for a very long time,” Batten stated. “So I do know it looks like one thing particular, however I can’t clarify how superb that is.”
It should really feel historic.
Her silver is the primary U.S. Olympic medal in cross-country since Georgia Gould was third in 2012 London. Mountain bike pioneer Susan DeMattei additionally gained bronze within the inaugural Olympics in 1996.
No American male has gained an Olympic mountain bike medal.
It virtually didn’t occur.
Damaged wheel however not damaged goals
Batten destroyed her entrance wheel on one of many early laps and ceded helpful terrain after making a wheel change.
“I received a flat tire and destroyed my entrance wheel and I feel I had the quickest wheel change ever,” she stated. “I knew the beginning was vital. And I messed it up. That was actually disappointing and I assumed I misplaced my probability of a medal proper there. I stayed calm.”
Batten raced on the Elancourt Hill course earlier than and knew that the combination of quick gravel-like tracks and the technical berms, jumps, rock gardens, and drops had been in her wheelhouse.
She began choosing off teams of riders in her comeback with out giving up hope.
Up the path, France’s Loana Lecomte crashed closely and was knocked unconscious whereas driving within the bronze medal place behind Ferrand Prévot. She suffered a concussion and a jaw damage, however was not in any other case severely injured.
Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) appeared to have a lock on silver at about 1 minute behind Ferrand-Prévot when she suffered a puncture halfway by the race.
That gave Batten, who discovered an ally in 2016 Olympic champion Jenny Rissveds (Sweden), the opening she wanted.
The pair labored collectively to maneuver up into the rostrum locations within the closing laps and fended off a resurgent Pieterse, who completed fourth, and Evie Richards (United Kingdom) in fifth.
“Me and Jenny have been racing each single race this yr. She’s made me a greater athlete,” she stated. “I knew after we had been collectively in these previous couple of laps, I knew it’d be actually actually onerous to beat her.
“I put my complete coronary heart and soul in at the moment’s race and I knew after she gave a few actually large assaults that she is perhaps burning just a little bit too many matches,” she stated. “My legs by no means damage for some cause. I simply I don’t know I simply wished it so so dangerous.”
Menace of a protest doesn’t forged pall
The race wasn’t with out controversy.
A annoyed Pieterse crossed the end line in fourth simply 21 seconds out of the medals, and she or he approached third-place Rissveds on the line. What did she ask?
“She requested if I used to be going to protest the medal,” Rissveds stated.
What was the problem?
Batten was noticed racing by the technical zone on the ultimate lap with out taking a water bottle or receiving technical help, one thing that the race jury observed.
After the race, Dutch officers wished to protest to the UCI, however race guidelines don’t enable a proper protest, Wielerflits reported.
Velo requested Batten after the press convention if there was a risk of dropping the medal?
“I don’t know if there’s a protest, we’ll see,” she stated.
On the end line, journalists requested Batten why she didn’t seize a water bottle, as UCI guidelines recommend.
“No, I didn’t seize a water bottle,” she stated, with the American flag draped throughout her shoulders. When requested if she was purported to, she replied, “I don’t know. I used to be within the second.”
Media reviews acknowledged afterwards that she was handed a 500 CHF tremendous for ‘failure to respect the directions of the race organisation or commissaires (utilizing the pit lane with out feeding or heaving technical help).’
USA Biking officers confirmed that no formal protest was filed and that the silver medal — and the historic consequence — stand.
For Batten, her private mountain bike and Olympic journey started in 2012, the final time an American gained a mountain bike medal.
“That was the yr that I made a decision I wished to be an Olympian due to her,” she stated of Gould’s medal in 2012. “I simply gained my first junior nationwide title and Georgia is the rationale why I’m right here at the moment.”
With one eye on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Video games, Batten is hoping to emulate Ferrand-Prévot, who was untouchable on a triumphant victory on house roads.
An American gold on American dust in an American Olympics: there’d be no higher option to write extra historical past.
Second place for USA!
Haley Batten earns #silver in biking girls’s mountain bike cross-country for @TeamUSA. It’s their first medal within the occasion since 2012!@UCI_MTB | #Mountainbike | #Paris2024 | #Samsung | #TogetherForTomorrow pic.twitter.com/cnLqy1e1mT
— The Olympic Video games (@Olympics) July 28, 2024
