The Paris 2024 Olympic Cross-country (XCO) will be raced at Élancourt Hill, south-west of Paris. A total of 72 riders are set to race: 36 women representing 28 nations on Sunday 28 July and 36 men from 27 countries the following day.
Mountain bike makes its eighth Olympic Games appearance in Paris, having been first raced at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, when Dutchman Bart Brentjens and Italian Paola Pezzo won in Conyers, Georgia.
Tokyo 2020 🥇 | @Paris2024 ❓@tompidcock will be chasing a second Olympic title on Elancourt's trails, entering the Men's Cross-Country Olympic race as the reigning Champion. 👑
— UCI MTB (@UCI_MTB) July 20, 2024
Can he make it 2️⃣ in a row next 29 July? 👀#OlympicCycling #Paris2024 #MountainBike pic.twitter.com/olFjiArACb
Of the reigning Olympic Champions, Great Britain’s Thomas Pidcock has overcome a health scare during his recent exploits at the Tour de France but Switzerland’s Jolanda Neff, despite selection, withdrew on medical grounds.
Spectators can look forward to seeing other former Olympic Champions in action, in the form of Switzerland’s Nino Schurter and Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds, the winners from Rio de Janeiro 2016. Let’s see how the form stacks up for them...
Women’s favourites: former Olympic Champions in the mix
In the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the women’s race saw a history-making Swiss clean sweep of the podium. That can’t be replicated with a maximum of two riders per nation, but as Neff was replaced by 2020 silver medalist Sina Frei to ride alongside 2022 UCI World Cup overall winner and 2024 UCI World Cup overall leader Alessandra Keller, Switzerland’s duo in Paris is a force to be reckoned with.
Besides series leader Keller the other four of the 2024 UCI XCO World Cup overall top-5 are all set to race in Paris: the Netherlands’ Puck Pieterse, 2023 UCI World Cup overall winner, is amongst the top favourites. Then there’s the USA pair of Haley Batten and Savilia Blunk, and South Africa’s Candice Lill. All of these in-form women are capable of a podium.
Beyond these five, other winners of 2024 UCI World Cup rounds are also due to line up at Élancourt Hill: as already mentioned, 2016 Olympic Champion Jenny Rissveds, who won Round 1 of the UCI World Cup this year, multiple UCI World Champion across different disciplines and double UCI World Cup winner this year (Nové Město na Moravě, Czechia, and Val di Sole, Italy) Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and French National Champion Loana Lecomte, winner in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
There’s plenty more talent to threaten the podium, not least Australia’s Rebecca Henderson (who won the first three UCI World Cup rounds of 2022); the young Austrian pair of Mona Mitterwallner and Laura Stigger, Great Britain’s 2021 UCI World Champion Evie Richards, Hungary’s Blanka Vas, Pieterse’s Dutch counterpart, Anne Terpstra, and Ukraine’s Yana Belomoina.
Men’s favourites: season’s best ready for battle
Looking at the form of riders in the top-5 of the 2024 UCI World Cup, the top two are also individual UCI World Cup round winners: South Africa’s Alan Hatherly, and the legendary Swiss, Nino Schurter. The 10-time UCI World Champion and winner of 36 UCI World Cup rounds has already collected bronze, silver and gold Olympic medals along with a 4th place last time around – and seems to show no signs of slowing down at the age of 38.
While third-placed overall Filippo Colombo missed out on selection for the Swiss team, Fourth-placed Luca Schwarzbauer (GER) and fifth-placed Sam Gaze (NZL) are both amongst the strongest riders in the pack and are not afraid to push the pace and lead from the front. The big Kiwi is reigning cross country short track (XCC) UCI World Champion as well as ripping it up on the road with Alpecin–Deceuninck. Taking top honours in Paris is within his highly ambitious remit.
The other 2024 UCI World Cup winners are 2021 UCI XCC World Champion Christopher Blevins (USA) and four-time Danish Champion Simon Andreassen, who each won a round in the opening double-header in Brazil. Then of course there’s Tom Pidcock – who has been victorious at the two rounds he raced, in Czechia and Switzerland. If he’s on his game it’d be risky to look beyond the lightweight Yorkshireman.
But there are other talented riders who want history written a different way. Not least the French pair of Victor Koretzky (three-time UCI XCO World Cup winner and 5th at Tokyo 2020) Jordan Sarrou (National Champion, 2020 UCI World Champion and winner of the 2023 UCI World Cup round in Snowshoe, USA) who’d love to script a home win.
Also look out for Switzerland’s Mathias Flückiger (2nd at Tokyo 2020), Italy’s double round UCI World Cup winner Luca Braidot and Spain’s David Valero (Tokyo bronze medalist).