ELANCOURT, France — French mountain biker Pauline Ferrand-Prevot finally won the Olympic gold medal that she had been chasing for more than a decade Sunday, while Haley Batten pounced when misfortune struck two of her biggest rivals to claim silver in the best finish ever for an American rider.
Ferrand-Prevot crossed the finish with her arms raised in triumph, a jubilant crowd of thousands breaking into a serenade for the new champion. She quickly dismounted and lifted her bike high above her head on the gravel finishing straight.
Ferrand-Prevot finished 2 minutes, 57 seconds ahead of Batten, who overtook Rio gold medalist Jenny Rissveds on the final lap. The Swedish rider was third in an emotional comeback after two years away spent working on her mental health.
Loana Lecomte, the other French favorite, was third midway through the race when she hit a stretch known as a rock garden. She went over the handlebars and landed hard amid the boulders in a brutal crash that ended her Olympic dream.
There also was heartbreak for Puck Pieterse of the Netherlands, who was firmly in second place until a flat tire forced her into a wheel change a few minutes later. The roughly 30 seconds she lost cost her the chance of making the Olympic podium.
The race took place on a purpose-built course designed by South African expert Nick Floros, who also created the mountain bike venues for the Rio and Tokyo Games. It was carved out of a wooded landscape at Elancourt Hill that was a sandstone quarry in the 1800s, then became a landfill until 1975, before a regeneration program turned it into a popular park.
It was packed with flag-waving French fans on Sunday, pounding the barricades every time Ferrand-Prevot passed by.
She has been trying to follow in the footsteps of Julie Bresset, who won mountain bike gold for France at the 2012 London Games. But after finishing 25th in that race, Ferrand-Prevot crashed hard in Rio and failed to finish the race, and she could only manage a disappointing 10th in the rain at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games.
Those letdowns haunted the 32-year-old from Reims, who has said she will step away from mountain biking now to focus on her road career. Ferrand-Prevot raced a pair of World Cups as tune-ups earlier this year, winning both of them, and she arrived at the Paris Games brimming with confidence.
She wasted no time going to the front, breaking away from the field on the second lap over a series of sharp climbs. She had built a 29-second gap on Pieterse and Lecomte by the end of Lap 2, and the margin had grown to a full minute — an astounding gap so early in an Olympic race — by the time she finished her third lap.
At that point, the only drama left was to decide who would join Ferrand-Prevot on the podium
Lecomte’s crash took the pressure off Pieterse, but her flat tire then threw open the race for several others. That group quickly dwindled to Batten and Rissveds, who swapped medal positions several times in their own race to the finish line.