F
Fred Dreier
Mountain biking made its Olympic debut at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. Since then, the United States—birthplace of the mountain bike—has won just two bronze medals in the discipline. Switzerland, meanwhile has ten medals,
But our country’s medal tally may increase this summer. Team USA’s Olympic mountain-bike racing program will enter the Paris Games in its strongest position in decades. In women’s racing, Haley Batten of Park City, Utah has entered into the highest echelon of international racing, regularly battling for the podium against the world’s best on the UCI World Cup series. Batten, 25, recently won the cross-country and short-track cross-country races at the World Cup round in Araxá, Brazil, from April 20-21. Her countrywoman Savilia Blunk also earned a spot on the podium.
On the men’s side, Christopher Blevins of Durango, Colorado has won two rounds of the UCI World Cup in recent years—his 2021 win ended a 27-year losing streak on the international series.
Why is this generation of American off-road racers so good? Who will get to represent the country Paris? We connected with Batten to find out.
OUTSIDE: Why is the current crop of American cross-country mountain bikers so good right now?
On the women’s side we’ve all been racing together for a long time and we’re starting to see the benefit of that competition. In the past few years, me, Savilia Blunk, Kate Courtney, and Gwendalyn Gibson have been right there getting strong results and earning front-row positions in short-track and cross-country races. I think we see each others’ success and think “well, I can do that too.” We’re also seeing that with the next generation of men’s racing. Blevins went to the last Olympics and now he’s won two World Cups, and we have Under-23 racers like Riley Amos and Bjorn Riley breaking into the scene. There’s a lot happening with youth development right now, and the participation numbers with the National Interscholastic Cycling Association continue to rise. Some of those kids end up in the USA Cycling elite development pathway, or they go race with really good youth teams like Bear Development or Whole Athlete, both of which make trips to race in Europe. There’s just a lot to be happy about right now.
Batten (center left) and Blunk (center right) are likely to represent Team USA in Paris. (Photo: Piotr Staron / Getty Images)
You, Savilia Blunk, and Kate Courtney are competing for the two U.S. Olympic spots. How will they decide the team?
USA Cycling set out a qualification criteria that included last year’s UCI world championships, last year’s World Cup overall standings, as well as the first three rounds of the 2024 UCI World Cup—the two rounds in Brazil, and then the May 26 race in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. The first set of criteria was a top-three finish at last year’s world championships, and none of us got that. The next was if anyone finished in the top-three of the final World Cup standings for 2023, and none of us got that. The next criteria is two top-five finishes at World Cup races in 2024, and both Savilia and myself met that. Since no other riders were in the top-five in the World Cup races in Brazil, it’s unlikely that anyone else will qualify for the women’s team.
Olympic selection is both competitive and collaborative. The more successful you and your countrywomen are, the more spots you earn for the Games. But you also want to beat each other to get a spot. How do you balance that competitive and collaborative side?
I’ve always believed that competition in mountain biking is more with yourself than with anybody else. So I definitely want Kate and Savilia and everyone else to be on the podium, because it gets us more Olympic spots and shows that we are capable as a nation. I’ve always wanted the U.S. to be up there with France or Switzerland as one of the best mountain biking countries in the world. In Switzerland, for example, there are six women who deserve to make the Olympics and only two get to go. In Tokyo, the Swiss team won all three medals for the women. I think that’s what we want, and when you look at the next generation, there’s opportunity. Some day soon they will surpass us.
Batten flies over a rock at the Araxa World Cup en route to victory. (Photo: Piotr Staron / Getty Images)
You need to deliver your best performance for these spring World Cups to earn an Olympic spot, but you also want to be strong for the Olympics. That sounds like a challenge.
It is, and a medal is definitely my goal this year. The Tokyo Olympics were all about getting experience, but this time I want to go and perform and win a medal and really see what I can accomplish. I had originally wanted to earn my Olympic spot at last year’s World Championships so that I could focus this entire year on the Olympics. But I crashed while training and had a concussion and couldn’t race. So this year has been all about performing well in Brazil and then trying to hit a second peak for Paris. Now that I know my chances of going are good, my mindset will shift for the next few months. I’ll take a break after Nove Mesto, rest, and then do a full rebuild in my training toward the Olympics. It’s definitely tricky. We saw some of the Dutch riders skip the Brazil races entirely because they’re already qualified for the Olympics and they didn’t want to risk getting sick or crashing. It’ll be tricky to achieve what I’m going to do, but I think that’s one of the things that makes the Olympics so exciting.
What impact have you seen NICA and other high-school mountain-bike programs have on the overall strength of racing in the USA?
We used to dream about having this much depth, and it’s so cool to see it happening. You go to one of the big USA races now and the number of riders in the Junior and Under-23 divisions is so much larger than when I was a kid. When I was coming up maybe there would be five other junior girls. Now, there’s a huge field of them. These programs are making mountain biking a common school sport. When I was coming up, it barely existed—my dad and I raced together and that’s how I got into it. But today you’re hearing more stories about kids discovering it in school and creating a community and friend group around the sport.
The post This American Mountain Biker Is Targeting an Olympic Medal in Paris appeared first on Outside Online.
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