Team GB’s Tom Pidcock delivered one of the most dramatic gold medals of the Paris Olympics in a nail-biting mountain-biking final on Monday. Pidcock defended his title by overtaking his French opponent, Victor Koretzky, with less than a minute of the race remaining. Before the race Pidcock had criticised the Élancourt Hill course, to the west of Paris, calling it “bland”. But racing on it, he produced a win that was anything but.
On the fourth lap disaster struck. Pidcock had a puncture that left him in ninth place, 40 seconds behind Koretzky. He appeared calm as his tyre was changed clumsily in the pit area. But by the end of fifth lap Pidcock had clawed back 15 seconds to put him sixth – and on the seventh lap he overtook Koretzky again. Then it was all down to the eighth and final lap. This is how that unfolded.
