Olympic gold and a rainbow jersey? Jolanda Neff, the runaway winner of the Olympic mountain bike title at the 2020 Tokyo Games has her sights on an exceptional double at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Val di Sole (Italy) from 25-29 August.
Only a select few have won both events in cross-country Olympic (XCO), and those who have done so in the same year are legends of the sport.
In 2004 Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjå of Norway and Frenchman Julien Absalon became Olympic Champions in Athens (Greece) and both followed this up by becoming UCI Mountain Bike World Champions in Les Gets (France). The feat was repeated in 2012 by France’s Julie Bresset (Olympic Champion in London, UK, and UCI World Champion in Leogang Saalfelden, Austria). Most recently, Switzerland’s Nino Schurter carried off the double in 2016 (Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, followed by UCI World title in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic). If Jolanda Neff were to succeed, she would write her name among the giants of mountain biking history.
The Swiss rider was UCI World Champion in XCO in 2017 and has won the UCI World Cup in the specialty three times (2014, 2015 and 2018). She is also a five-time Swiss Champion (2016-18, 2020, 2021) and four-time European Champion (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019). But the 28-year-old is skipping this week’s European Championships in Serbia as she targets the UCI World Championships in Val di Sole.
Jolanda Neff’s impressive record has been wonderfully consistent over the years. The only gap in her winning form came after she suffered a serious injury in December 2019. A high speed crash while training in North Carolina (United States) resulted in a ruptured spleen, fractured rib and collapsed lung.
Neff’s recovery from her injuries was impressive, getting back into contention in Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup races in autumn 2020 and placing sixth in the 2020 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Leogang. But on returning to Leogang for a round of the 2021 UCI World Cup, she crashed while chasing the eventual winner Loana Lecomte of France, breaking a bone in her hand.
Quick healing, smart training and undiminished determination meant that Neff was back to perfect form to win the Tokyo 2020 Olympic race, leading home an historic 1-2-3 for Switzerland ahead of Sina Frei and Linda Indergand.
Jolanda Neff took a UCI Mountain Bike World Cup win on the Val di Sole course in August 2017. In five visits to the venue for the UCI World Cup, she has only missed out on the podium once – so there’s no doubt she knows how to win on this circuit.
Her next victory came two weeks later, with the UCI XCO World title in Cairns, Australia, where she beat Annie Last (GBR) and France’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. It was a Swiss double with Schurter winning the Men Elite event – and compatriot Sina Frei joined the party with victory in the U23 Women race.
Neff’s win sparked a brilliant run. Never out of the top five in the seven rounds of the 2018 UCI World Cup, including three victories, next came the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships on home ground in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. But Neff came up just short of the podium, finishing fourth.
While Neff’s 2017 victory is her only UCI XCO World Championship crown to date, she’s no stranger to the rainbow bands, having been a member of the winning Team Relay squad in 2017-19. What’s more, she secured a world title at the UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships in 2016, before turning her attentions to Cross-country Olympic.
Neff has a pedigree in the younger age categories too: she was Under-23 UCI Mountain Bike World Champion three times (2012-14). In the first of these consecutive victories she witnessed Bresset concluding her Olympic/Worlds double in the Elite race.
The two leading French women will be looking to bounce back from disappointment at the Olympics and double UCI XCO World Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has a point to prove at the European Continental Championships in Serbia before heading to Italy.
Loana Lecomte is taking her first Olympic experience philosophically and looking forward to new challenges, quoting Nelson Mandela: ′′I never lose, I either win or learn′′
The Tokyo 2020 Games also shone a spotlight on the talents of 19-year-old Kata Blanka Vas (HUN), and other young riders, including Evie Richards (GBR) and Laura Stigger (AUT). Or could the threat to Neff come from her own compatriots, her closest rivals in Japan?
The women’s 2021 UCI Mountain Bike World Championship race will be swiftly followed by the men’s competition – a race that will be equally fascinating and tough to call.
Nino Schurter has a special place in the hearts of many fans, and after his brave fourth at Tokyo 2020, his race programme mirrors Neff’s, skipping the European Championships to hit Val di Sole hard. Meanwhile, his compatriot Mathias Flückiger (second at Leogang last year and silver medallist at Tokyo 2020) is seeking to cement his position as the top Swiss man by wresting the world title from Frenchman Jordan Sarrou.
However, there are no guarantees at the UCI World Championships – other than there will be a whole host of talented riders determined to shine.