France’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot completed her immense list of achievements with the gold medal in the women’s Mountain Bike event at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in a race controlled from start to finish by the Ineos Grenadiers star.
The final podium was completed by the American Haley Batten, second, and the Swedish Jenny Rissveds, third. The best South American rider of the competition was Raiza Goulao Henrique from Brazil, who finished 28th.
An impressive victory for Ferrand-Prévot with a lead of more than three minutes over her immediate pursuers. The French all-rounder has world titles in the cycling-mountain biking specialty: Marathon, XCO and XCC and in Gravel.
From the start of the race, on the course of the Élancourt Hill, the native of Reims isolated herself at the head of the race, quickly relegated her opponents to more than 30 seconds on the second lap of the race and gradually increased her advantage for a very comfortable victory.
The 32-year-old French mountain biker is one of the best French sportswomen in history. Her particularity: to shine in all terrains, since she became world champion in road, gravel and mountain biking. But it is in the latter discipline that Ferrand-Prévot shines. In total, the French rider has 15 world titles to her name, including five in mountain biking.
But her history with the Olympic Games has been marked mainly by failures. In the last edition, in Tokyo, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot finished 10th after retiring in Rio in 2016 and a 26th place finish in London 2012.
Olympic Games XCO (París 2024)
Ranking General
| 1 | Pauline Ferrand-Prévot | Francia | 1:26:02 |
| 2 | Haley Batten | Estados Unidos | 2:57 |
| 3 | Jenny Rissveds | Suecia | 3:02 |
| 4 | Puck Pieterse | Países Bajos | 3:23 |
| 5 | Evie Richards | Gran Bretaña | 3:27 |
| 6 | Laura Stigger | Austria | 4:13 |
| 7 | Alessandra Keller | Suiza | 4:41 |
| 8 | Samara Maxwell | Nueva Zelanda | 4:41 |
| 9 | Anne Terpstra | Países Bajos | 5:33 |
| 10 | Blanka Vas | Hungría | 5:40 |
Source: Revista Mundo Ciclístico