Pauline Ferrand-Prevot finally wins Olympic mountain bike gold for France

ELANCOURT, France — French mountain biker Pauline Ferrand-Prevot carries a pair of tattoos — the Olympic rings under her left wrist and the phrase “Life is a joke” on the back of her neck — that seemed altogether appropriate on Sunday.

After more than a decade of trying, she finally won the Olympic gold medal that had always eluded her. The rings on Ferrand-Prevot's wrist flashed to an adoring, sun-splashed crowd that refused to stop serenading her at the finish line. That phrase on her neck? Well, the joke was on everybody else in the mountain bike race.

She pulled away early and they never saw her again, finishing 2 minutes, 57 seconds ahead of everyone else.

Might as well have been an eternity.

“I was just thinking about myself and not the others, and just riding my own race,” Ferrand-Prevot said. “I was like a robot. I didn't hear anyone on the course. Even my parents, I didn't really hear them. I was just on a mission.”

Haley Batten overtook Rio gold medalist Jenny Rissveds on the final lap to give the U.S. its best finish in an Olympic mountain bike race. Rissveds earned an emotional bronze after spending two years away from the sport working on her mental health.

“I visualized finishing with the medal around my neck for a long time,” Batten said, “so I knew I’d feel something special, but I can’t explain how amazing that is.”

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 amid the boulders in a brutal crash that ended her Olympic dream. She was checked by medics but later attended Ferrand-Prevot's news conference with a bandage on her chin.

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. The roughly 30 seconds she lost cost her the chance of making the Olympic podium. She finished fourth.

That gave Batten an avenue to the silver medal after Americans had won bronze in the race in 1996 and 2012.

“I'm one of the best athletes in the world, and I know I'm the best I've ever been," Batten said, “so for me, the preparation has been in the details. Steady building every single year, one step at a time.”

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 the 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.

“I put my whole heart and soul in today's race,” said Batten, who was fortunate to have a punctured tire right near her mechanic, allowing her to get it fixed quickly and stay in the race. “I had something special inside of me today. My legs never hurt for some reason. I just, I don’t know. I just wanted it so, so bad.”