The easy way, the hard way
Two very different races at the Paris Olympics
At first, the men’s mountain bike race at the Paris Olympics looked like it would follow the same pattern as the women’s. As Pauline Ferrand-Prevot had in the women’s race, Tom Pidcock hit the front with a small group. As Ferrand-Prevot had, Pidcock took a small group with him and looked to ride them off his wheel.
Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, the great French hope for gold and a pre-race favourite, did ride the group off her wheel. She slowly took the race on and the race dropped away behind her.
Luck was with her too. The riders who managed to hold onto her wheel the longest were not rewarded for their efforts. Their thanks for trying to push Ferrand-Prevot for the gold was a crash for compatriot Loana Lecomte, and a puncture for Puck Pieterse of the Netherlands. Lecomte didn’t finish the race and Pieterse finished fourth.
Ferrand-Prevot meanwhile continued to push on. She led most of the race all alone. She made it look relaxed. She made it look serene. She made it look easy. It wasn’t easy, obviously. Most of the Olympic sports look easy from the comfort of the sofa. Or if not easy then at least doable.
It was hard. Ferrand-Prevot pushed every lap and it was this pushing that meant the rest of the field were competing for silver and bronze.
Tom Pidcock’s race looked hard. It didn’t look like it would be at first. Pidcock led from the front and had only France’s Victor Koretzky for company. The question at that point: how long could Koretzky hold on? Surely Pidcock would drop him and ride away like Pauline Ferrand-Prevot.
But luck was not with Tom Pidcock. It was all looking good until it all went flat. A front-wheel puncture meant Pidcock had to jump down one of the drops on the course, and although it took him some time to get to his mechanics they weren’t ready for him. A slow, slow wheel change followed and Pidcock was over 30 seconds down on Koretzky.
Bruno! Poor Bruno, Pidcock’s mechanic, was namechecked after the race, so everyone now knows Bruno didn’t have the wheel ready. Bruno’s wheel change was slow and now Pidcock was way behind.
So the chase began. Though there were other riders between Pidcock and Koretzky, the longer the race went on the clearer it became that Pidcock had eyes only for the Frenchman and was reeling him in. Alan Hatherley of South Africa was there for a while with Pidcock, but eventually, finally, it was Pidcock and Koretzky alone at the front again.
The final lap. Koretzky dropped Pidcock first. That looked like that. No, Pidcock pulled back in front on the descent. But past again czame Koretzky and again that looked the race. There was no long climb for Pidcock to get past. But into the trees they went and Pidcock jumped up an inside line. Pidcock’s handlebars were just in front as they came together and away he went. Koretzky couldn’t come back and Pidcock rode away to gold for the second time in his career.
It was barnstorming stuff, the perfect advert for cycling on the biggest stage outside the Tour de France. Ferrand-Prevot’s win was the perfect advert for French cycling, but Pidcock and Koretzky’s battle was a vicious tug-of-war between the two men and will live long in the memory.
The Olympic champions in the mountain bike are Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Tom Pidcock. The number next to both of their names at the end of their respective races was 1. But how they got there, how they won their races, could not have been more different.
Ferrand-Prevot led for most of the race, and had all the luck. It always looked like her day. It hardly ever looked like Pidcock’s. But fight back and win he did, even if it wasn’t to the liking of those on Élancourt Hill.
That was the one final difference between the two races. Pauline Ferrand-Prevot was, as expected, roared across the line. She won the race for France in France, and was duly adulated as she did so. Tom Pidcock received a decidedly frostier reception. He had after all just passed a Frenchman right before the line, in a legal if slightly argy-bargy sort of way. He had essentially nabbed the gold from right under Victor Koretzky’s nose. And so he was booed. The Parisian crowd momentarily forgot their Olympic spirit and greeted the now two-time Olympic champion with derision.
Pidcock labelled the boos “a shame.” The gold medal will probably make up for them.
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This was fun and suspenseful. It read like a great short story.