Tokyo 2020: Favourite women
After the mens race today, tomorrow we have the olympic womens race on the agenda. Prepare yourself for a race with many favourites and fierce battles for the medals.
Jenny Rissvends
Let’s also start with the reigning olympic champion. Jenny Rissvends had to overcome severe psychological problems after her win in Rio. She even left the sport for a year. Since then she slowly but constantly worked her way back to the top spot. This year she finished second at both last World Cups. So if nothing goes wrong she might add another medal to her collection. Maybe not the golden one this time.
Loana Lecomte
We have to talk with the obvious top favourite for the olympic MTB race. Loana Lecomte last year raced her first elite XCO World Cup and she won it. After that she became third once and all other World Cup races she won. So she won 4 of 5 World Cup races. This year she won every XCO race she participated in. She always won with a generous distance to who ever was second. It seems not to be if she wins a medal but if there is someone who might be a danger for her.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt
Talking about danger… Pauline Ferrand-Prévôts big dream is to win the olympic MTB race. She has that goal for several years now. This season apart from two short track races she didn’t win anything. She always was there and almost always on the podium. But the other Frenchie Loana Lecomte was always in front of her. She always seemed to be confident in her build up for the olympic race repeating over and over that her only goal this year is the olympic race and that she will be in best shape by then. I would love to see her win after the struggles she went after she was world champion in three disciplines at once but I think it could possible that she just might not be the strongest women of the race. But let’s see, she clearly has the experience and the mindset to focus everything on one goal.
Jolanda Neff
Jolanda, my all time favourite MTB rider. She had a life threatening crash in 2019 from which she recovered well. It took her a while to be in a really good shape again, but this year she won the Swiss national championships again and finished fourth in the Leogang World Cup. During that race she sadly broker her arm and had so skip the Les Gets World Cup. She is ready to race now again, but I fear she might not be the best yet. But Jolanda won the test event which was held on the Izu MTB course in 2019 so she definitely likes the track and knows how to conquer it.
Rebecca McConell
The Australien champion did show great form this year already. At most of the races she was involved in the battle for the first spots. Rebecca managed to get some podiums too. She never won a World Cup so far, but it seems only a matter of time now.
In the womens field are many many other who on a good day could end up at the top spot. Kat Courtney didn’t have any luck this year so far. But the winner of the 2019 World Cup overall will surely give her everything. The two Dutchies Anne Terpstra and Anne Tauber are also always to keep in mind. Evie Richards had some good results this season. If her form did increase even more since Les Gets she might be a contender. Sina Frei might be the seconds fastest or even fastest Swiss woman in the field. Ronja Eibl is a former U23 WorldCup overall winner and her form increased since the beginning of the season very well.
Sure is that this race will be a hard fought race the question is if anyone can keep up with Loana Lecomte this year. If so we will probably the most exciting XCO race of the year just in front of us.