{"id":26373,"date":"2024-07-28T10:28:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-28T16:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-savilia-blunk-places-12th-in-paris-2024-olympics-womens-mountain-biking-race\/"},"modified":"2024-07-28T16:28:52","modified_gmt":"2024-07-28T16:28:52","slug":"durangos-savilia-blunk-places-12th-in-paris-2024-olympics-womens-mountain-biking-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-savilia-blunk-places-12th-in-paris-2024-olympics-womens-mountain-biking-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango\u2019s Savilia Blunk places 12th in Paris 2024 Olympics women\u2019s mountain biking race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Savilia
Savilia Blunk, of the United States, competes in the women\u2019s mountain bike cycling event at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Sunday in Elancourt, France. (George Walker IV\/Associated Press)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

ELANCOURT, France \u2013 For a few minutes, Durango\u2019s Savilia Blunk held her spot at the front of the pack during the women\u2019s mountain biking race at the Paris 2024 Olympics. All around her, fans five-deep cheered and red, white and blue flags waved.<\/p>\n

The flags were all stripes and no stars, however, \u00e1 la the French banner, and they waved with fervor as countrywomen raced from bell to bell in a sprint to seize the gold medal on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Blunk\u2019s American teammate Haley Batten overcame a broken wheel to celebrate the USA\u2019s first silver medal in the sport. Sweden\u2019s Jenny Rissveds, who won the gold in 2016, took the bronze.<\/p>\n

Like the flags, Blunk\u2019s advantage wasn\u2019t quite what it seemed.<\/p>\n

\"Savilia
Savilia Blunk, of the United States, competes in the women\u2019s mountain bike cycling event at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Sunday in Elancourt, France. (George Walker IV\/Associated Press)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Savilia
Savilia Blunk, of the United States, competes in the women\u2019s mountain bike cycling event at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Sunday in Elancourt, France. (George Walker IV\/Associated Press)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Her UCI ranking of fifth earned her an esteemed place on the front row. Racing in her first Olympics, however, the 25-year-old got sucked into the pack soon after the starting bell sounded.<\/p>\n

After seven laps around the roughly 2\u00bd-mile course, Blunk finished 12th. Her 1 hour, 31 minutes, 52 seconds on the course trailed Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot by nearly six minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe start was just so fast,\u201d Alec Pascalina, USA Cycling\u2019s director of mountain biking said.<\/p>\n

Blunk<\/a> showed grit by going from 16th \u2013 nearly midpack in the 36-racer field and where she landed after two laps \u2013 to 12th.<\/p>\n

A new rule implemented this Olympics after Switzerland swept the podium in Tokyo restricts countries to just two racers apiece. That makes for a smaller field and more gaps between racers. Blunk rarely had anyone to race with and had to pull herself up the standings under her own power.<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot nearly took her foot off the gas. She so dominated the course that even Batten, the silver medalist out of Park City, barely got within three minutes of the Frenchwoman\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

Rissveds and Batten took advantage of a flat tire by the Netherlands\u2019 Puck Pieterse, who had been all alone in second, to move into medal contention. By then, though, Batten had already battled back after having to run across a large portion of the course to get her own new tire, which she said she smashed on the trail.<\/p>\n

Batten\u2019s medal is the third for the United States since mountain biking became an Olympic sport in 1996. Susan DeMattei won bronze that year and Georgia Gould earned bronze in 2012.<\/p>\n

Kristen Armstrong, who has won three gold medals in road cycling and now coaches Batten in mountain biking, said first-time Olympians face a greater challenge than veterans of the Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the blessings Haley had was being, I call it a \u2018participant\u2019 in Tokyo,\u201d Armstrong said. \u201cI find that the first Olympic Games is a lot. Athletes will disagree with me because they\u2019re like, \u2018No, I\u2019m here to compete.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Let\u2019s get through that first one.\u2019 Because it is a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot four Olympics to finally add the last jewel to her mountain biking crown. The reigning world champion said she planned to retire from mountain biking and will instead pursue road racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed to be free in my head,\u201d she said. \u201cWinning or not, I would have stopped anyway. I don\u2019t see myself doing this again, training for the Olympics again. It doesn\u2019t make sense for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Savilia
Savilia Blunk, of the United States, competes in the women\u2019s mountain bike cycling event at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Sunday in Elancourt, France. (George Walker IV\/Associated Press)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

While that chapter is ending, Batten said she plans to stay around for at least four more years. Watching Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot win on her home soil, with all those flags waving around her, cemented her determination to not only compete in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, but to win it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to see Pauline win here, and the next one\u2019s mine,\u201d she said. \u201cTo have the Olympics in your home country is absolutely incredible. And I think (winning gold in 2028) is the bigger goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julie Jag is a former sports reporter for The Durango Herald and now works at the Salt Lake Tribune. She is covering the Summer Olympics from Paris<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

grit by pulling herself up from nearly midpack in the 36-racer field<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[657,950,28,977,346,2505],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cycling","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-mountain-biking","tag-sports","tag-summer-olympics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26373"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}