The Paris 2024 Olympic Games begin this week with the opening ceremony scheduled for Friday 26th July on the River Seine. Cycling has been a part of the Olympics programme since the Games’ modern inception in 1896 and at Paris 2024 there will be 22 gold medals will be on offer.
At the last Olympics in Tokyo, Great Britain topped the cycling medal table. This has been the case since Beijing 2008 when British cycling soared on the Olympic stage.
At Paris 2024, 30 British riders will travel to France to compete at the 33rd Olympic Games. Some athletes selected will be competing in multiple disciplines during the three-week-long festival of sport. In total, five men and five women will compete for Great Britain in the road cycling events at Paris 2024. On the track, seven women and nine men will fly the flag for Great Britain at the Vélodrome National. Two men and two women will compete in mountain biking. Lastly, Great Britain will have three men and three women competing in the BMX race and freestyle competitions.
Let’s meet the latest field of British cycling Olympians.
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Road cycling
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There are four gold medals available in the road cycling events at the 2024 Olympic Games with a time-trial and a road race for men and women.
In terms of recent British Olympic history, both men and women have won Olympic titles in the past 20 years. Nicole Cooke won the women’s road race title back in 2008 and Bradley Wiggins emerged victorious in the time-trial at London 2012. There were no British medals on the road in Tokyo.
Josh Tarling
A.S.O./Billy Ceusters
20-year-old Josh Tarling from Aberaeron will be Great Britain’s biggest medal hope on the road at Paris 2024. He will target the time-trial and is looking to become the youngest time-trial gold medallist in Olympic history.
Tarling has secured some top results on the road over the past 12 months. He won his WorldTour level race at the Renewi Tour and also won at the O Gran Camiño back in February. At international time-trial championships, Tarling has a strong record. He made the podium at the 2023 UCI Road World Championships in Stirling. Later in the year, he won the European Championship title, defeating Wout van Aert, Stefan Bissegger and Stefan Küng.
The Welshman will also be on hand in the road race, hopefully with a medal already in the bag.
Tom Pidcock
A.S.O./Billy Ceusters
Ineos Grenadiers multi-discipline rider Tom Pidcock will feature in the men’s road race on Saturday 3rd August.
He has a strong Classics pedigree, which should suit the course. He won the Amstel Gold Race earlier this year and Strade Bianche in 2023. With the short steep kicker of Montmartre on the agenda, this could favour the fiery Yorkshireman. Some discretion must be added given that Pidcock recently contracted Covid at the Tour de France.
Pidcock will also feature in the mountain biking at Paris 2024. He is the reigning Olympic champion in that discipline and will be looking to back up his title from three years ago.
Pfeiffer Georgi
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Pfeiffer Georgi will be the leader of Britain’s women’s team.
The 23-year-old won the British National Road Race Championship in June and has enjoyed an A-list spring with her trade team DSM-Firmenich-PostNL. In April, Georgi scored a podium finish at Paris-Roubaix Femmes and a fourth place at Amstel Gold.
With the Classics style route in place for the women’s road race, Georgi can believe in her chances. The cobbled climb in Montmartre and the snaky circuit should favour Georgi for a top ten at least.
Lizzie Deignan
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Lizzie Deignan will be the only former Olympic road medalist on the women’s team having taken a silver medal back at the London 2012 Olympics, becoming one of Britain’s first medallists at those home Games.
Having had two kids and two comebacks since then Deignan has most recently been a valuable teammate for Lidl-Trek, however she recently tasted some of her own success with a top ten overall at the Tour of Britain Women.
Deignan is a Classics-minded rider with plenty of experience. The 35-year-old has won Strade Bianche, Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège over the past decade. She will most likely play a key role in supporting Pfeiffer Georgi’s chances in the women’s road race.
Full list of riders competing for Great Britain in road cycling
Fred Wright (men’s road race)
Stevie Williams (men’s road race)
Tom Pidcock (men’s road race)
Josh Tarling (men’s road race and time-trial)
Ethan Hayter (men’s time-trial)
Anna Henderson (women’s road race and time-trial)
Anna Morris (women’s road race)
Pfeiffer Georgi (women’s road race)
Lizzie Deignan (women’s road race)
Track cycling
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Great Britain have a heritage in track cycling.
This started at Beijing 2008 when Team GB won 70% of the gold medals on offer at the velodrome. This hit rate continued into London 2012, but faltered to a respectable 60% gold medal rate at Rio 2016. At the last Olympics, Great Britain received their lowest amount of track cycling golds in two decades, dropping down to just three, a 25% conversion rate.
Historically, British men have been more successful than women on the track. However, this could change in 2024 given the current strength of women’s sprinting in Britain. This will also be the first Olympic Games without Jason Kenny or Chris Hoy since 2000.
Jack Carlin
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Scotland’s best chance of a men’s cycling medal at the 2024 Games comes courtesy of sprinter Jack Carlin. He will spearhead the British team in the men’s sprint and keirin events in the absence of the retired Jason Kenny.
The 27-year-old from Paisley has won 13 medals at international competitions, however, he is yet to claim a gold. At the last Olympics in Tokyo, he took home a silver and bronze in the sprint and team sprint events.
At the World Championships last summer, Carlin claimed a bronze medal in the sprint. Against Dutch super-sprinter Harrie Lavreysen it will be tough for Carlin to banish his nearly-man status in the individual sprint event. However, in the team sprint, Carlin’s British teammates have a good record, scoring two podium finishes at top-tier UCI events already in 2024.
Ethan Hayter
Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP
Ethan Hayter will be covering multiple bases at Paris 2024. He will line up in the men’s road race as well as in the omnium, team pursuit and madison races on the track.
Hayter took the world title in both the omnium and team pursuit at the 2022 World Championships in Paris. There, he also claimed a silver medal in the madison alongside Ollie Wood, who will once again partner up with Hayter at the 2024 Olympics.
This year, Hayter resumed his track form by picking up the European champion’s jersey in the omnium and team pursuit. He continued his winning ways at the Nations Cup in Canada.
If it’s anything to go by, road riders usually excel in the omnium event. Groupama-FDJ’s Matt Walls took the title in Tokyo and Hayter’s Ineos teammate Elia Viviani won the gold medal in 2016.
Dan Bigham
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Dan Bigham has had an atypical journey to his debut Olympics. The 32-year-old was part of the pioneering Huub-Wattbike squad that revolutionised pursuiting. The squad operated outside the British Cycling loop and on a much tighter budget but maximised aerodynamics and became the agent provocateur of the track cycling world. After this, Bigham soon joined the British track team and quickly became captain of the men’s pursuit squad.
Bigham broke the British hour record and the world hour record between 2021 and 2022 and has been a performance engineer at Ineos Grenadiers, being a key part in Filippo Ganna’s Hour record.
On the track, Bigham has taken a gold medal in the World Championships in the team pursuit back in 2022, and a silver in the individual pursuit in 2023. He was also part of the team that became European champions at the beginning of 2024 and the squad that won a round of the UCI Nations Cup in April.
Emma Finucane
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Welsh-born Emma Finucane has picked up the baton from the golden generation of British track racing. Based on recent results, Emma Finucane is the track rider most likely to win gold in Paris.
At the age of 20 last summer in Glasgow, Finucane made a major breakthrough at the World Championships. In qualifying for the sprint, she broke the 200m flying lap world record and later secured the title after defeating Lea Sophie Friedrich in the final. In doing so, Finucane became the first British woman to win the sprint world title in a decade. She backed up this title with a gold medal and rainbow jersey in the team sprint event.
Finucane has continued this form into 2024. At the European Championships in January, she won the individual sprint title and two silvers in the team sprint and keirin races. At Paris 2024, she will be competing for Great Britain in those three events.
Neah Evans
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Before becoming an Olympian, Neah Evans was a vet. Now, she has become one of Britain’s most solid track stars. In total, the Scottish rider has two world titles and six European titles to her name.
Last year, Evans took the rainbow jersey in the madison at home in Glasgow. She has also claimed championship medals in the omnium and team pursuit in recent years. In Paris, she will compete in the team pursuit, omnium and madison alongside Elinor Barker.
At the age of 33, this is likely to be Evans’s last Olympic Games.
Elinor Barker
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Elinor Barker is a long-term member of the British track team. She won a gold medal at the 2016 Games in the team pursuit and a silver at the Tokyo Games in the same event.
Barker is contracted on the road to Uno-X’s women’s road squad, but she is a track rider through and through. In total, Barker has seven world titles in her back catalogue and ten European title wins. At the last World Championships, Barker won gold in the omnium alongside Neah Evans and the team pursuit. At Paris 2024, the 29-year-old Welsh rider will compete in the pursuit and madison events.
Full list of riders competing for Great Britain in track cycling
Dan Bigham (team pursuit)
Ethan Hayter (men’s omnium, madison and team pursuit)
Charlie Tanfield (men’s team pursuit)
Ethan Vernon (men’s team pursuit)
Ollie Wood (men’s team pursuit, omnium and madison)
Hamish Turnbull (men’s sprint, team sprint and keirin)
Ed Owen (men’s team sprint)
Emma Finucane (women’s sprint, team sprint and keirin)
Katy Marchant (women’s sprint, team sprint and keirin)
Sophie Capewell (women’s sprint, team sprint and keirin)
Neah Evans (women’s team pursuit, omnium and madison)
Anna Morris (women’s team pursuit)
Josie Knight (women’s team pursuit)
Elinor Barker (women’s madison and team pursuit)
Jess Roberts (women’s team pursuit)
Mountain biking
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The mountain biking schedule only comprises one race for men and women, the cross-country event. These races will take place on Sunday 28th and Monday 29th July in Élancourt.
Historically, mountain biking has been Britain’s weakest Olympic cycling discipline, however at the last Olympics, Tom Pidcock became the first British rider to win a mountain biking medal for Great Britain. No British woman is yet to win any Olympic medal in the discipline.
Tom Pidcock
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As mentioned, Tom Pidcock became the first British rider to win a mountain biking medal at the Olympic Games, sailing away from a strong field of competitors to take the win in Tokyo.
Pidcock has since claimed the cyclocross world title, a handful of road victories and a mountain biking world title in the cross-country event at the 2023 Worlds.
In 2024, the Yorkshireman has won three rounds of the MTB World Cup and looks to be on strong form ahead of his Olympic title defence. At the moment, Pidcock is the bookies’ favourite for gold.
Evie Richards
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Evie Richards will line up in Paris as Britain’s top mountain biker on the women’s side. This will be Richards’ second Olympic Games having come in seventh in Tokyo.
Since 2021, Richards won the gold medal at the World Championships and backed this up a year later with a Commonwealth Games title in the same event. This year Richards has won a round of the UCI World Cup in Brazil in the shorter XCC discipline.
Full list of riders competing for Great Britain in track cycling
Tom Pidcock
Charlie Aldridge
Evie Richards
Ella MacLean-Howell
BMX
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BMX is the latest event to be added to the cycling programme. The BMX race made its debut at the Beijing 2008 Games and the BMX freestyle was introduced at the last Olympics in Tokyo. The race is set around a short track where a handful of riders will throw themselves around the winding course. The freestyle on the other hand is about scoring points with tricks and stunts in a skate-park setting.
Until 2020, no British rider had won a medal in the BMX events. At the last Olympics however, Great Britain swept the golds in the women’s events courtesy of Charlotte Worthington and Beth Shriever, while the men in Tokyo claimed silver and bronze medals.
Charlotte Worthington
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28-year-old Mancunian Charlotte Worthington is already an Olympic champion. The BMX rider took gold at the last games in the BMX freestyle event after smashing her second run of tricks around the freestyle track. During this run, Worthington became the first woman in history to land a 360-degree backflip in competition.
Since becoming Olympic champion, Worthington won the British national title before taking a break to recalibrate her mental health in 2022. She returned to competition at the World Championships in Glasgow where she finished seventh.
Full list of riders competing for Great Britain in BMX
Kieran Reilly (men’s freestyle)
Kye Whyte (men’s race)
Beth Shriever (women’s race)
Charlotte Worthington (women’s freestyle)
Source link : https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/british-cyclists-at-paris-2024-olympics
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Publish date : 2024-07-26 11:29:46
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