The boos rang out over Élancourt Hill, scolding Tom Pidcock for a maneuver that any mountain bike racer worth their salt would have attempted. Including Victor Koretzky.
It’s worth a brief discussion of why that is, because Pidcock’s pass in the final moments of the men’s cross-country race on Monday certainly didn’t look very sportsmanlike. He and France’s Koretzky had been battling back and forth for two laps already, one taking a few meters, then the other. The final pass involved a sharp elbow and the forced seizure of a line that Koretzky was already on. The Frenchman was forced to put a foot down, and the small gap that opened ended his chances at Olympic Gold.
And yet, though his countrymen and women booed the move loudly, Koretzky didn’t complain, nor did his team file any sort of complaint. They know the rules, they know their sport, and they know that while Pidcock’s move was rough and, for them, heartbreaking, it was also well within the bounds of both the written and unwritten rules of mountain bike racing.
The first and most important thing to know is that in XC, there is no concept of a rider “owning” a line, as there is in road sprinting or, even more so, track racing. This is particularly true when two lines converge, as was the case in the Pidcock/Koretzky incident. Beyond that, whether a rider is in the wrong or not comes down to the details.
Let’s break it down.
First, the entry. This was one of the few sections of course with two discernable lines, traced through the woods with grass and trees in between. The rest of the course was dumped and pressed pea gravel or hard-set logs — a travesty on its own, but not the subject of this story.
Pidcock began his sprint just before this freezeframe, so he was already beginning his acceleration past Koretzky. He clearly had this spot in mind before he got to it, as he began accelerating before the trail split.
The left line (rider’s right) was the line used by almost every racer through both the men’s and women’s races. In normal conditions, it’s faster, because it sets up the coming left-hand corner better. Koretzky is on this line and staying on it isn’t a mistake.
Haflway through this short section, the two are level. Koretzky is setting up for the corner as one should, swinging wide so he can cruise through with minimal or zero braking. Pidcock is off the normal racing line but, crucially, is going faster. Koretzky is about to realize he’s being attacked.
One could argue Koretzky should have seen this coming, since it was one of the last sections with two lines, and also accelerated toward this corner. My guess? He was thinking more about the wide-open finish area and holding Pidcock off there.
Here we go. The course cuts left here, and the presence of a tape stake just off of Pidcock’s left hand is about to be perhaps the most important part of the whole course.
The two lines converge in this corner. Koretzky is still on the faster entry line, setting him up better for this corner as well as the next. But Pidcock only needs to be slightly in front of Koretzky as they hit the apex – the general rule, both in terms of sportsmanship and pure physics, is whoever has their handlebars farther forward has control of the single line when two lines are coming together. This is a very common thing in XC racing, and this corner was probably the source of multiple similar (but less consequential) passes throughout the two days of racing.
This race, in this moment, is largely decided. Pidcock’s handlebars are in front of Koretzky’s, he has control of the apex of the corner, and anything else that happens is pure racing incident.
Koretzky has a few choices. He can try to barge Pidcock back off the line, but because he’s half a meter behind, that will likely end in failure. It would involve him using his handlebars, which he needs to steer, to push the hip and center of gravity of Pidcock. That’s why I referred to this as both a question of sportsmanship and physics. Koretzky physically can’t get Pidock off line at this point, even if he tried.
His second option is to brake, hope that Pidcock’s bad entry to the corner leads to a bad exit, and that he can repass moments later. But with another tree coming up and narrowing the course again (just out of frame on the rider’s right), this isn’t really an option either.
His only option is to play a bit of bumper cars and try to ride it out.
This is where Koretzky is unlucky. Pidcock has the line here, but Koretzky still came into the corner at a better angle and should have been able to jump straight on the wheel. But Pidcock’s foot goes into Koretzky’s front wheel, causing a larger bobble.
And then there’s a tree. Koretzky was set up to flow around the left side of this tree, but after losing the line he is pushed right, straight into this tree. He grabs a fist full of rear brake, kicking his back wheel around. He puts a foot down, tripoding it for a moment, and uses the traction of his front tire to pull the bike back on line. But at this point his momentum is gone, and so is Pidcock.
It took an enormous amount of skill to come into that corner from the wrong angle, at sprint speeds, and still get around in one piece. Pidcock’s rear tire slides to the right just before entry, indicating he probably tapped his rear brake to try to get the bike around, momentarily breaking traction so he could pull through the corner. It could have ended in disaster, crashing himself off course, or getting caught in the tape as it narrowed. Koretzky, too, showed incredible skill to stay upright as he was barged into, lost his rear wheel, and then pulled it back and around that tree. Both riders deserve enormous credit for their rides on the day.
There’s a bit of irony in the booing given a similar sort of line choice is often referred to colloquially as the “French line,” so named because of a begrudgingly reverential stereotype that French riders will take the shortest or fastest line between two points, regardless of where the actual trail is. Pidcock used the course to his advantage, Koretzky did everything he could to stop him, and the result was the result. That’s mountain biking, as they say.
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