Pauline Ferrand-Prévot laid the ghost of bitter experiences in past Olympic Games with an accomplished ride to an emotional gold medal for France in the women’s mountain biking, but it was a mixed day for the hosts after Loana Lecomte sustained a serious injury in a crash.
For Ferrand-Prévot it was a monumental victory, long in the making, in what is expected to be her last mountain biking race. The 32-year-old, five times a world champion, was 25th in London 2012, forced to abandon after a crash at the Rio Olympics, and thwarted by a puncture in Tokyo.
Ferrand-Prévot said: “I’ve been in robot mode the past few months, like a hermit. I haven’t spoken to anyone. I just trained, ate and slept.”
Now, after finally winning Olympic gold, she is planning to move into road racing. “I want to prepare for the Tour de France Femmes and try to win the Tour next year,” she said.
Team GB’s Evie Richards, riding in her second Olympic Games, finished fifth, only 25 seconds outside the medal positions, despite recovering from a serious concussion less than two months ago. “Seeing as I was in bed with a concussion seven weeks ago, fifth was great,” Richards said. “I banged my head really badly, and I had close to six weeks off the bike.
“There were times when it was really scary and I didn’t think I’d get better. I didn’t think I’d make it, I didn’t think I’d qualify. I have put a hell of a lot of work in five weeks and I think that shows today.”
The 27-year-old added: “I raced a World Cup, my first one back, five weeks ago and I was 30th. Five weeks on to finish fifth, I didn’t think I’d ever go from 30th to fifth, so I’m happy with that today. I wanted to finish strong, to finish with a smile on my face.”
Ferrand-Prévot may have had bad luck in the past but this time she had no mishaps, although her teammate Lecomte, in contention for a medal, crashed and was knocked out midway through the race as she negotiated a rocky section of the course. The 24-year-old sustained a concussion and a jaw injury and was evacuated from the site on a stretcher.
But Ferrand-Prévot’s success, perhaps the biggest win this year from an Ineos Grenadiers-sponsored cyclist, had an air of inevitability about it, as soon as she made her decisive attack on the second lap.
Team GB’s Richards, initially part of the main chasing group, slipped back on the third of seven laps and was unable to claw her way back into medal contention. She had no complaints. “It’s just a completely different course, but the Olympics is always a different course,” Richards said of the largely gravel circuit.
“It’s easy to make small mistakes. It’s important to stay calm and concentrate on your lines.”
Despite criticism from Tom Pidcock – Britain’s defending men’s champion last week labelled the venue in the Parisian suburb Elancourt “bland” – David Lappartient, the president of the organising committee, described the staging as “magnificent”.
“It’s what we wanted to have,” said Lappartient, who is also president of the sport’s governing body, the UCI. “We wanted to have the mountain biking here. There were options in the Alps, but if wanted to share it with the Olympic family, it had to be in Paris.”
Pidcock will defend his Olympic title on Monday afternoon and Richards expects the “very fast” course to suit both him and his Great Britain teammate Charlie Aldridge. “Charlie’s absolutely flying at the moment,” she said. “I think they’ll both have a really good race.”
