July 26/21 3:47 am - Pidcock Beats the Swiss Machine for Mountain Bike Gold
Posted by Editoress on 07/26/21
Great Britain's Thomas Pidcock won the much anticipated battle for the men's Olympic mountain bike title. Four days before his 22nd birthday, he becomes the youngest Olympic mountain bike champion in history, 79 days younger the 2016 women's champion, Jenny Rissveds of Sweden. Switzerland's Mathias Flueckiger took silver and David Valero Serrano of Spain made a late surge to deny defending champion Nino Schurter (Switzerland) a fourth Olympic medal.
l to r podium: Mathias Flueckiger, Thomas Pidcock, David Valero Serrano
Canada's one entrant, Peter Disera, finished 26th, 6:31 down on Pidcock. He came out of the start loop in 22nd place, but dropped back to 30th by the end of Lap 1. By Lap 3 he was back up to 27th, moving up one more spot on the sixth lap, which he held to the finish.
"Honestly, I'm pretty good at remembering most of my races, but this was a bit of a blur," said Disera. "I had a decent start and ended up in a really good spot. But then just the odd thing here and there ... I was trying to be conservative; knowing the heat and how loose the conditions were, I didn't want get myself too deep into a situation that I couldn't get myself out of. I knew some guys would be frothing and throwing out bullets, so I would let them by, to let them overheat and then catch them a lap later - that was my thought process."
Peter Disera
"I had big aspirations later in the race to do a big push, but the legs had taken such a beating out there, with how loose everything was. You had to ride with such a diligent traction control, just to keep traction on the rear wheel and get up the climbs. I fought as hard as I could; the heat was okay, it was manageable, but I didn't have the later half of the race that I wanted. But whenever I started to get a little bit down, I just thought, 'man, enjoy every pedal stroke of it'. It was a cool experience, for sure. It was good ... we always want more, but I'm not going away upset."
This race was expected to be a battle between Pidcock, Flueckiger, Schurter and Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands). The start loop seemed to bear out this expectation, with all four in the top-6 as they began the first of seven laps of the 4.1 kilometre circuit. However, it was a disaster for van der Poel, who over rotated after going off a big rock drop, crashing heavily and sitting at the side of the course, holding his wrist and hip. The Dutch rider slowly got going again at the back of the field and managed to move up to the mid-teens before dropping out.
The race for the medals came down to four riders in the first half of the race - Pidcock, Flueckiger, Schurter and Anton Cooper (New Zealand). Henrique Avancini (Brazil), after briefly challenging on Lap 1, drifted backwards on Lap 2 to eventually finish 13th.
As they started Lap 3 it was down to Schurter, Flueckiger and Pidcock at the front, with Cooper dangling on and off the back of the group; losing ground on the climbs and fighting back on the flat and technical sections. Behind, Victor Koretzky (France) and Ondrej Cink (Czech Republic) were close enough to still be in the medal hunt.
Thomas Pidcock
Mathias Flueckiger
However, on the fourth lap Pidcock began to apply pressure on the steep climbs. Schurter initially went with him, which may have been a mistake, since he soon afterwards faded back to Cooper. Flueckiger managed to claw his way back up to the Brit, but it would prove to be only temporary, with Pidcock dropping the Swiss rider for good as they started the fifth lap. Behind, Schurter and Cooper had been joined by Koretzky, with Cink also getting into the bronze medal battle.
Pidcock attacked every climb, out of the saddle, stomping on the pedals. Flueckiger was holding him to seven seconds, but had a costly mistake in the loose gravel of a switchback on one of the steep climbs, having to get off his bike and run. That proved to be the end of his challenge for gold, as he dropped to 15 seconds down, and from that point on he was riding to preserve his silver, eventually finishing 20 seconds down and only 14 seconds in front of Valero Serrano.
Behind, as the race entered the penultimate lap, Cink attacked, getting a gap on the rest of the chasers. The Czech rider was looking strong until a rear puncture dashed his hopes and took him out of the race. He could only sit at the side of the course and watch other riders go by. Meanwhile, Valero Serrano was making a steady climb into medal contention, and joined Schurter, Cooper and Koretzky in the battle for third just before the start of the final lap. He went to the front of the group and dropped the other three in the final half lap to take the bronze.
But the day was Thomas Pidcock's; a rider who only qualified a spot for his country in the final race of the qualification period and is more known as a road and cyclo-cross rider. He becomes the second Ineos Grenadiers rider to win gold at these Games, after his WorldTour team mate Richard Carapaz (Ecuador) won the men's road race on Saturday.
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