Dominant Pauline Ferrand-Prévot finally captures Olympic mountain bike gold at Paris 2024

A dominant ride from home crowd favourite Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has seen the French superstar finally manage to claim an Olympic gold in the women's mountain bike.

Arguably the biggest name in women's mountain biking, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was only missing an Olympic gold from her palmares. In her final attempt and in front of a home crowd, the Frenchwoman started strongly too. At the end of the first lap though, she was still with compatriot Loana Lecomte and Dutchwoman Puck Pieterse.

At the start of lap 2 however, the Ferrand-Prevot attacked and attacked hard, breaking free of her rivals and quickly building up an advantage of around 30 seconds. By the end of lap 2, Pieterse, who had began to distance Lecomte with a counter attack was still 29 seconds behind Ferrand-Prevot.

As Ferrand-Prevot only extended her lead, Pieterse was stuck in no man's land behind in second as Lecomte was swept up by the chasing back in the battle for bronze. For some however, the brutality of the course was beginning to take effect as Candice Lill saw her bike completely destroyed and then Lecomte herself crashed incredibly hard on the logs.

On lap 5, Pieterse, who had looked comfortable in silver suffered a puncture and the fight was well and truly on. This only benefitted Ferrand-Prevot however, whose lead was now pushing the three minute mark. As the Frenchwoman took the bell for the final lap, the crowd as at fever pitch in excitement for their hero. With Pieterse caught and passed, the duo of USA's Haley Batten and Sweden's Jenny Rissveds were leading the fight for the rest of the podium places.

In the final feed station, Ferrand-Prevot made her first mistake of the day, missing a bottle from one of her helpers, but still more than three minutes clear, it was unlikely to be a telling error. Behind, it was Batten who was beginning to get a gap in the fight for silver.