France’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was crowned cross-country mountain bike world champion as she soared over the race on Saturday in Glentress Forest, Scotland, cementing her status as a favorite at the Paris Olympics a year from now. Defending champion, the 31-year-old runner becomes the first woman in history to win five world titles in this Olympic discipline. She won with 1 minute and 14 seconds ahead of another Frenchwoman, Loana Lecomte. This is the first gold medal for France in an event on the 2024 Olympics program during these Glasgow “Super Worlds” bringing together 13 cycling disciplines.
In demonstration on the seven laps of the circuit in the undergrowth of Glentress, south of Edinburgh, it won alone, in gray and wet weather, far ahead of the competition. Already titled Thursday in short-track, “PFP” is a living legend of women’s cycling where she has won everything on all terrains, except an Olympic title. She now has a total of 15 world championship titles, taking into account all disciplines (road, mountain bike, cyclo-cross, gravel). But, for the moment, she has always been cursed at the Olympic Games: 26th in London in 2012, she had given up four years later in Rio, before finishing only 10th in Tokyo.
Accustomed to working alone, she made a major change this winter by becoming the first woman to join the British team Ineos alongside road stars like Tom Pidcock, Egan Bernal or Geraint Thomas. She took some time to digest the change and, after a puncture, only took 19th place at the European Championships in June, before injuring her left knee in a heavy fall in a heat of World Cup in Val di Sole, Italy, in early July. But in Scotland she played a class above everyone else, including Dutchman Puck Pieterse who had won almost everything this season and finished in bronze, at 1:27.
