Stories abound at Olympic women’s MTB race
Post race analysis from the Paris women's race
After years of buildup, the mountain bike events at the Paris Olympic Games finally commenced today with the women’s race. The 1h:30m race brought the unexpected storylines that any race offers up, but that feel all the more dramatic at the Olympics.
Read on to find out what stood out to me. To read my play-by-play race report, head on over to Escape Collective.
Pauline’s perfect ending
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot attacked on the second lap and the gap to second place never came back. She came into the race as a big favorite, but the performance is still astounding. Even more pleasing is the fact that an Olympic gold medal was one of the only achievements missing from her resume, and she did it in front of a home crowd.
Ferrand-Prévot also confirmed at the post race press conference that she will be hanging up her mountain bike wheels at the end of the year. Next year she is rumored to ride for professional road team Visma-Lease a Bike and will target the Tour de France Femmes.
Crashes and mechanicals impact favorites
The gold medalist’s compatriot, Loana Lecomte, had a nasty crash in the big rock garden midway through the race. She appeared unconscious for a brief period, and French media reported that she suffered a head impact and jaw injury.
The rocks also caused Puck Pieterse to flat while riding in second position. She went into the tech zone for a new wheel and ultimately finished fourth. Another victim of the rocks was South African Candice Lill, who exploded her wheel in a tough break for the privateer who has been having an impressive season thus far.
Batten best American result ever
The last time an American medaled in the Olympic MTB race was 1996, the very first year the discipline was in the Olympics. That year it was Susan Demattei who earned the bronze medal. Today, Haley Batten of Park City, Utah upped the ante with a silver medal.
The aforementioned crash and mechanical gave Batten and Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds the opportunity to move up and battle for the podium, showing both riders’ tenacity and smart recognition that anything can happen in a race.
Batten did cause minor controversy when she attacked through the feed zone in the closing minutes of the race, violating a rule stating that riders must take food or mechanical assistance if they ride in the tech zone lane (rather than the parallel lane right next to it). Cyclingnews reported that the Dutch team protested this but officials did not find it consequential, only issuing a fine rather than relegating Batten.
My take is that Batten did not gain an advantage by going through the feed zone lane, and Rissveds would not have come around her either way.
Switzerland outside of the medals
In a change of the guard, Switzerland did not factor in the race for the medals this year after they swept the podium in Tokyo. Defending gold medalist Jolanda Neff pulled out of the race last week after breathing problems derailed her season. That left Alessandra Keller as the best hope for the successful mountain bike nation. Keller fought hard and ultimately finished in 7th.
Maxwell proves herself to New Zealand and the world
Eighth place finisher Samara Maxwell initially was left off of New Zealand's mountain bike squad, despite being the U23 world champion. It seems that Maxwell’s history of disordered eating played a role in that decision, but a tribunal overturned the initial snub in support of Maxwell.
New Zealand’s cycling federation should now see that as a mistake narrowly missed, as the Kiwi rode to a top-10 performance, which obviously would not have happened if she hadn’t been racing.
Complaints over NBC coverage of event
Americans watching the race did so through Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform that is home to all Olympic coverage. Viewers complained on social media of frequent advertisements, often interrupting key moments of the race. Other fans navigated this by using technology to view other country’s coverage of the event or finding streams of the event by other means.
The advertising complaint specifically highlights that the Olympics are a business enterprise and at times Peacock can be an ad machine rather than a streaming platform. Mountain biking—a relatively niche sport—likely is not on the radar of many NBC execs. They appear to have simply slapped on some ads and forgot that they even carried the mountain bike race.
NBC is not in the good graces of mountain bike fans, who are used to uninterrupted coverage of the mountain bike World Cup races on the Max platform. The critiques are similar to ones made during the Tour de France this summer, which I wrote about here.
Olympic mountain biking continues tomorrow with the men’s race at 14:10 local time.
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