2024 Olympic XCO race recap: Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot take home gold

The Pinarello duo show both a dominant race and one of the most dramatic Olympic XCO races we've seen.

off.road.cc staff

Jul 29 2024

[Words by Steve Thomas]

With the 2024 Pairs Olympic Mountain Bike XCO races done and dusted with we assess how the races were won, how the cards were played, and take a look at the surprises and lessons thrown up in the French dust of Elancourt Hill.

The Woman’s Race

On her fourth crack at an Olympic title, and on home turf, the multi-talented French racer Pauline Ferrand-Prevot finally managed to score what must rank as her greatest ever achievement on two wheels, that being the Olympic XCO title.

With a dozen world titles in various cycling disciplines to her credit already, and with this slated as her last serious MTB race before re-focussing on her paused road racing career, the victory took absolutely nobody by surprise. However, the manner in which she achieved it did.

Elancourt’s 4.4km loop may well have been lacking some on the mountain and technical side of things in comparison to many of the regular World Cups courses, but on the day, it did provide an epic battle, one which was dictated almost from the get-go by the French duo of PFP (Ferrand-Prevot) and Leona Lecomte.

Following a horrendously wet and slippery road time trial on the day before the MTB race, there were likely a fair few nervous riders and mechanics around the MTB pits. A wet course could well have transformed the race, turning what was a relatively tame course into a sticky slog in some places, and greasing up the man-made technical sections too. Had it stayed wet, that could have favoured the more technically strong riders and could have leaned towards a slightly different result, and naturally, the choice of equipment used would have been mulled over in hope, although luckily (for most riders) the sun did bless them on race day.

With it expected to be a very close and tactical race when things dried out, many riders, including PFP opted to race on hardtails in order to gain those extra speed benefits that can be carved out by a skilled rider, all be it at the potential higher risk of flatting, which many did.

Racing got off to a predictably fast start, and the gaps soon opened at the front of the race, with the prime contenders all being towards the front. We will never know exactly what the plan of attack was by the French riders, as although the duo are national teammates, they are not trade teammates, and both were prime contenders for the title.

However, it could well be imagined that they went into the race with a plan based around shaking it up very early on, with Lecomte putting pressure on and risking the red line to shock the field and to give PFP an early opening to try and work with and, if that was the plan, then it was executed to brutal perfection.

Early into the second round of the seven-lap race it looked set for the French pair and Puck Pieterse of the Netherlands to fight out the medals between them. On to a short climb, and clearly, PFP was just waiting for the opportunity to pounce, and duly she did, in a precise and clinical way and without so much as a hint of hesitation or a glance back at her rivals.

Barring an accident, from that early and decisive moment it was hard to see anyone challenging the French rider. With every turn of the pedals, the gap to the chasers opened up, reaching a staggering three minutes by the end – in a race where gaps between riders were expected to be measured in seconds, not minutes. It was a masterclass by the French ace and, in so many ways, the most fitting way possible for her to end the flat-bar chapter of her career.

Sadly, Lecomte started to fade and then took a heavy fall in the rock garden, which put her out of the race and out of consciousness for a moment. Thankfully she’s said to be fine now. Going into the closing stages Pieterse flatted whilst looking likely to take the second spot, leaving Haley Batten of the USA to fight back from an early flat to narrowly gap the 2016 Olympic Champion Jenny Rissveds of Sweden to snare silver, with Britain’s Evie Richards coming home in a sweet 5th spot, two better than in Tokyo in 2021, while the 19-year-old Ella MacLean-Howell finishing an impressive 22nd.

The Men’s Race

Going into the men’s title bout, there was a fair amount of anticipation as to how much the learnings from the women’s race the day before would be noted and acted upon, and as to what intel would be shared by national and trade team staff and their riders, and as to whether one of the strong male duo’s and their prime favourites could put in a dominant ride like that Ferrand-Prevot had done 24-hours earlier.

With many of the leading hopes for the title having skipped certain lead-up races to prepare, and with Tom Pidcock having left the Tour de France early with a COVID-19 diagnosis and having expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the race track, the form book was also a tad jittery in the final lead into the final battle of Elancourt.

The race got off to a flying start, with young guns and potential contenders, such as Chris Blevins (USA), Alan Hatherly (ZAF) and Britain’s Charlie Aldridge leading the charge. And it soon looked set to be a very different style race the women’s event, perhaps even heading the way we had pre-imagined, thankfully, it would turn out a whole lot differently.

As things settled into a long and high-pressure lineout, Tom Pidcock, Victor Koretzky, along with the more established favourites were a little way down the string, and questions were being raised as to whether they or not they were biding their time or had the fast course and hot conditions favoured the young and the brave?

Even so, it looked as if the Swiss veteran duo of Mathias Fluckiger and Nino Schurter seemed to have a plan, with Nino taking a slight backseat ride as his teammate laid on the pressure. Though, in such a feast and explosive race, perhaps it was a plan destined not to have the desired effect.

As the early laps rolled on, South African Alan Hatherly was seriously turning up the heat at the front; but was he overcooking it, perhaps buoyed by confidence from his recent World Cup XCC and XCO double victory? Either way, he was determined and was looking more capable than anticipated by some in carrying out his mission to win a medal. Meanwhile, not too far behind the lead was the great French hope Victor Koretzky, who soon made his intentions clear by taking the front, and in a smartly cooked way, too.

However, Pidcock had rapidly moved up through the lineout to join him. For a moment it looked very much as if this was to be the decisive move, with the Yorkshireman seeming very confident of taking the race from the front – until he had a puncture, leaving him 40 seconds behind at the crunch moment. It all looked to be game over for his title defence.

Meanwhile, the flying Frenchman Koretzky pushed on ahead, with Hatherly dangling ever present behind, with the chasers not too far behind. It seemed to be game over for Pidcock, and it would appear as if he was on his own on an impossible mission, racing against the ever-shortening race clock to get back to the front end of the race.

What played out in that closing quarter of the race was nothing short of spectacular, and highly tactical, perhaps even the greatest Olympic MTB showdown we’ve ever seen. Very few would have given close to even odds of Pidcock pulling back Hatherly, let alone the seemingly floorless leader Koretzky and yet that is exactly what he did.

Clearly brimming with determination, perhaps laced with a dose of over-confidence, Pidcock took the race by the horns, while Hatherly wisely sitting back and clung on. As for Koretzky, he perhaps rode the smartest race of all when caught by the chasers, saving his bullets for two unanticipated final shots at attacking Pidcock, and he was oh so close to pulling it off.

Into that final descent towards the finish line Pidcock had reeled him again in, and then took a final dive for the lefthand line, with Koretzky then veering in and colliding with him, losing his footing and momentum, leaving the Brit to ride to his second successive Olympic tile – booed to the line by the French fans.

Despite any preconceptions that many of us had about how this race and course stood up, it turned out to be truly epic – mountains or not. As for the outcome, Pidcock was clearly in a league of his own, in terms of form, technical ability and, but only just. It’s hard to see any true wrongdoing in the final clash with Koretzky, who perhaps rode the smartest race of all.