With the 2024 Olympics in Paris fast coming around, we explain what to expect, how to watch and who to keep an eye on this year, plus take a quick dive into the history of mountain biking at the Games.
Words Steve Thomas Opening pic Bartek Wolinkski/Red Bull Content Pool
Jump straight to section:
- When is the Olympic mountain biking?
- How can I watch?
- How does it work?
- What’s the course like?
- Who are the riders to watch
- Who gets to race?
- What about enduro and downhill?
- Why do the Olympics matter to mountain biking?
- A brief history of MTB at the Olympics
When is the Olympic mountain biking?
Sunday 28 July, 2pm: Women’s cross-country
Monday 29 July, 2pm: Men’s cross-country
How can I watch?
Keep an eye on https://tickets.paris2024.org for tickets. The racing will be televised on the small screen by the BBC (UK), NBC (USA), the Nine network (Australia), Sky (New Zealand) and other broadcasters, and by Warner Bros Discovery in 47 markets across Europe on Max, discovery+ and Eurosport.
How does it work?
XCO (Cross-Country Olympic) racing sees riders set off en masse and complete a set number of laps on undulating terrain, battling to be the first across the finish line. There are separate races for men and women.
Compared to a World Cup round or even a World Championships, the start numbers at the Olympics are skimpy – just 72 riders, split between the two events. This makes for a very different and less congested style of racing.
What’s the course like?
This year’s title bouts will take place on the wooded trails of Élancourt Hill (Colline d’Élancourt) – at 231m tall, the highest point in the Paris area. The course is just a few minutes’ ride from the famous Palace of Versailles, and around 21 miles south-west of the centre of Paris.
At the time of writing, the track was still in the final tweaking stages, but it’ll be based on the one used for the test event last autumn – a 4.35km loop on a mix of purpose-built and existing trails, with lots of ups and downs, a good amount of fast singletrack, and some root and rock gardens.
Race durations should be between 1hr 20mins and 1hr 40mins. The riding will be fast and intense but not extremely technical, and the weather is likely to be warm and dry, so should suit riders who mix up their flat-bar racing with drop-bar cyclocross and/or road events.
Who are the riders to watch?
Although two slots remain to be filled (see below), in the woman’s event, France’s multi-disciplinarian ace Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will surely start as odds-on favourite. The reigning champ, Jolanda Neff of Switzerland, has pulled out, due to breathing trouble, but Dutch star Puck Pieterse will likely also be a serious contender. Britain’s Evie Richards is also a serious contender – she has a knack of producing magic when there are gongs up for grabs.
In the men’s race, it’s Tom Pidcock, Britain’s first and only Elite male XCO world and Olympic champ, who’s the favourite, after his nemesis, road world champ Mathieu van der Poel, of the Netherlands, announced he’d be skipping the XC in Paris to focus on the road racing. However, Pidcock is ‘doing a Bradley Wiggins’ and aiming to compete in the Olympics immediately after riding the Tour de France, which may either seal or soil his chances.
Other riders who could upstage them include France’s Victor Koretzky, riding with a home tailwind and confidence from winning the test event, and all-conquering Swiss veteran Nino Schurter, who can never be discounted, especially given that this will likely be his last Olympics, and possibly his final season of racing.
Who gets to race?
The Olympic qualification system is based largely on national points gained and the resulting rankings in World Cups and Continental Championships between May 2023 and late May 2024.
The top eight nations get two slots in each race (one fewer than in Tokyo, where the Swiss took all three women’s medals), while the following 19 get just one. As hosts, France get an extra pair of slots. Add to this two “universality” slots drawn at late notice, and you have the full Monty.
Unfortunately, this means some of the best riders don’t make the cut, and many smaller nations are excluded entirely.
Here are the teams and athletes confirmed so far:
Australia – Rebecca Henderson
Austria – Maximilian Foidl, Mona Mitterwallner, Laura Stigger
Belgium – Ememeline Detilleux, Pierre de Froidmont, Jens Schuermans
Brazil – Ulan Bastos Galinski, Raiza Goulao Henrique
Canada – Gunnar Holmgren, Isabella Holmgren
Chile – Martin Vidaurre-Kossmans
China – Zhifan Wu
Colombia – Jhonatan Botero Villegas
Czechia – Ondrej Cink, Adéla Holubová
Denmark – Simon Andreassen, Caroline Bohe, Sofie Pedersen
Estonia – Janika Loiv
France – Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Victor Koretzky, Loana Lecomte, Jordan Sarrou
Germany – Nina Benz, Julian Schelb, Luca Schwarzbauer
Great Britain – Charlie Aldridge, Ella MacLean-Howell, Tom Pidcock, Evie Richards
Israel – Tomer Zaltsman
Italy – Simone Avondetto, Martina Berta, Luca Braidot, Chiara Teocchi
Latvia – Martin Blums
Mauritius – Aurélie Halbwach
Mexico – Adair Zabdiel Gutiérrez Prieto, Erika Monserrath Rodríguez Suárez
New Zealand – Sam Gaze, Samara Maxwell
Netherlands – Puck Pieterse, Anne Terpstra
Norway – Knut Rohme
Poland – Paula Gorycka, Bartlomiej Wawak
Portugal – Raquel Quieros
Romania – Ede-Karoly Molnar
Slovenia – Tanja Zakelj
South Africa – Alan Hatherly, Candice Lill
Spain – Jofre Cullell, David Valero
Sweden – Jenny Rissveds
Switzerland – Mathias Flueckiger, Sina Frei, Alessandra Keller, Nino Schurter
Ukraine – Yana Belomoina, Oleksandr Hudyma
USA – Riley Amos, Haley Batten, Christopher Blevins, Savilia Blunk
What about enduro and downhill?
Downhill and enduro mountain biking arguably have a bigger following than cross-country racing – in the English-speaking world, at least – so why aren’t they Olympic sports?
The biggest issue is that most Games are effectively city-based, and major popular centres don’t often have mountains on their doorstep. This is OK for XC racing, which can be run on a short and relatively mellow course, but not for MTB disciplines that require steeper, rougher terrain and long descents.
In Paris, for example, you’d end up with a 30-second run in the Élancourt woods, or a long trip south to the mountains, and it would’ve been similar at London 2012. Rio and Tokyo are exceptions, of course – a descent from the Christ the Redeemer statue or a blast down the barren slopes of Mount Fuji would have been spectacular!
Ultimately, mountain biking is just one fiddly piece of the world’s greatest sporting jigsaw, and opening up the Games to include DH and EDR would bring huge financial and logistical issues for the hosts. It would also cause disputes with other sports that don’t have Olympic status due to their inherent requirements.
Plus, other cycling events would likely have to be sacrificed to make way for these disciplines – something we can’t imagine national bodies such as British Cycling being keen on, given how much money they’ve invested in track and road racing to ensure Olympic success (which is what much of their funding is based on).
Then there’s the elephant in the boardroom. The International Olympic Committee is a huge, older-than-old-school organisation, which can be slow to embrace newer sports, especially if that means abandoning older, long-established ones.
While the adventure sports boom of the 1990s saw no fewer than five snowboarding disciplines included in the Winter Olympics, the only X Games-style addition to the Summer Games has been BMX racing. There’s no skateboarding, inline skating or wakeboarding, nor any BMX park, vert, trails or flatland, so it’s no surprise that the more ‘extreme’ end of mountain biking isn’t represented either.
Another reason given in the past for DH, in particular, not being included was that certain bikes gave riders an unfair technological advantage. However, that’s no longer so valid, now that the sport is more mature, the pace of innovation has slowed and brands have coalesced around similar geometry and suspension designs.
One thing’s for certain – DH and EDR aren’t going to be included anytime soon. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. Top riders we’ve spoken to over the years have expressed fears that adding gravity racing to the Olympics would take mountain biking away from the mountains and get more blazers and badges involved, taming the sport and losing some of its soul.
Why do the Olympics matter to mountain biking?
Bart Brentjens (NED) – Gold, Atlanta 1996
“From the moment I heard about mountain biking becoming an Olympic sport, I was focused on that, and as I came closer to potentially becoming an Olympic champion, the more I focused. It did change my life. It doesn’t matter what kind of Olympic champion you are, or in what sport, you’re a national hero, a celebrity. It means a lot for the country you live in.”
Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå (NOR) – Gold, Athens 2004
“As an athlete who won a gold, you reach people who aren’t even interested in sport. It’s about sponsorship and attention, so it has great value for your career. But, at the same time, you have limited riders on the start line and it’s not showing people what we want them to know about the sport, not at all.”
Julien Absalon (FRA) – Gold, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008
“In mountain biking, when you’re world champion, you’re just [famous] in a small world – your own sport. The Olympics is different, because when you become Olympic champion, it’s a lot bigger, it’s all around the world. Also, you’re an Olympic champion for life, but world champion for just one year.”
Nino Schurter (SUI) – Gold, Rio 2016
“Working for many years towards the goal of winning the gold at the Olympics sure made it extremely satisfying when I finally reached my dream. I knew I was best prepared and in excellent shape. In moments like these, I focus on myself and not on who else is there or what they do.”
Pics: Getty Images
A brief history of mountain biking at the Olympics
Bicycles are inextricably linked with the modern Olympics. It all goes back to 1850, when stern-faced men with big moustaches and long shorts raced the original big-wheelers (penny farthings) around Much Wenlock in Shropshire, England, as part of the inaugural Wenlock Olympics.
Believe it or not, this event would go on to inspire the eventual reincarnation of the then-defunct ancient Olympics as the modern-day Games in 1896 (which is why the London 2012 mascot was named Wenlock). And cycling has been included ever since.
It would be another 100 years until mountain biking would make its Olympic debut, though. While people had been riding off-road for decades, the first recognisable ‘mountain bikes’ emerged in the mid 1970s and thriving race scenes had become established across the globe by the mid 1980s, it wasn’t until 1990 that the UCI (International Cycling Union) deigned to take this scruffy young sport under its wing. Which is when the racing side of things got a whole lot more serious.
Usually, it takes many years, and at least a demonstration event, before a ‘new’ sport makes the Olympic roster, and yet – perhaps because of its huge popular appeal, with a bike on every kid’s Christmas list – mountain biking made the cut as a title event at Atlanta 1996, in the form of men’s and women’s cross-country (XC) races.
That first race was perhaps the all-time pinnacle of the sport – or of XC, at least – in terms of popularity, with the flat-bar gold rush being led by lofty flying Dutchman Bart Brentjens and glitzy Italian star Paola Pezzo.
Interestingly, 1996 was the first time when professional cyclists were allowed to compete in the Games. Had that not changed, the start line and podium of the MTB race would have looked wildly different, and the sport might have gone on to develop along different lines.
Mountain biking has been included at every Olympics since – and is on the schedule once again this summer. Unlike in Tokyo, where, due to the pandemic, the racing was all but held behind closed doors, this time around the course will be lined with cheering fans – with plenty more of us urging them on from our sofas.
The Olympic MTB races are something we can all get behind and be proud of, as off-road riders of all kinds. After all, it’s not often we get to see our countrymen and women take on the world’s best in front of a global audience, on live TV.
What about the Brits?
British mountain bikers have represented their country at the Olympics from the beginning, with Gary Foord and David Baker finishing 12th and 15th, respectively, at Atlanta ’96 and Deb Murrell taking 22nd. (Caroline Alexander was also on the team but didn’t finish.)
UK riders have raced at every Games since, with Oli Beckingsale and Liam Killeen tying for the greatest number of appearances – three apiece. However, while British track cyclists came to dominate the Olympic bling haul, the best result by one of our mountain bikers remained Liam’s superb fifth place in Athens in 2004.
That all changed at Tokyo 2020 (or 2021, as it turned out, due to COVID-19), when Yorkshire lad Tom Pidcock dominated the men’s race and took our first ever Olympic MTB title, while the Malvern Hills’ Evie Richards bagged a fine seventh place in the women’s.
It was a huge day for British mountain biking – a day that elevated the status of the sport on home turf, put fat-tyre fun and thrills in front of the whole nation, and, who knows, may even have inspired the odd youngster to ditch YouTube and PlayStation for two wheels and fresh air.
When late July comes around, both Tom and Evie should be out to make good on their Japanese results, while Charlie Aldridge and Ella MacLean-Howell will be making their Olympic debut in Paris.
