By Roger Childs

The highly-decorated multi-discipline superstar attacked away with brutal pace on the second lap up the main climb of the 4.4km course southwest of Paris, leaving Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) and Loana Lecomte (France) in her dust and dominating the whole day right to the line. –Cycling News 29 July 2024

Great spectacle in the Elancourt Hills

30km from the centre of Paris are the Elancourt Hills and it was here that an estimated 50,000 spectators watched the women’s mountain-biking event. There were seven 4.4-km laps on a largely zigzag course with features such as The Wall, The Giant Stairs, The Rock Stepdown, The Meadow Jump, The Log Drop-Off, The Summit Take-off and The Gold Rush. The altitude varied from 172m to 231m and there were many very tight turns and highly technical sections which caused a few accidents, including a heavy fall to one of the favourite Frenchwoman — Loana Le Comte in The Rock Garden. Most of the course was in bush and in places there were trees to avoid in the middle of the track!

French magic

Pauline Ferrand Prevot took the lead during the first lap and drew away from the rest of the field with Le Comte and Dutch woman Puck Pieterse. But after Le Comte’s fall and Pieterse needing a change of wheel, Ferrand Prevot kept increasing her lead. 

 In the end she beat a world class field by an extraordinary 2 minutes 57 seconds, much to the delight of the largely French crowd who frenetically waved the red, white and blue flags and cheered her all the way!

There was a tense battle for the silver and bronze medals with American Hayley Batten narrowly heading off Sweden’s Jenny Rissved. 39 bikers started the race but only 23 completed the seven laps in the allowable time and Kiwi Samara Maxwell was placed a very creditable seventh.

The camera work was brilliant and the producers provide plenty of information along the way such as placing and time gaps. Wonderful viewing!