Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds was all smiles as she accepted her bronze medal and hugged an emotional Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on the rostrum of the ladies’s cross-country race on the 2024 Paris Olympics. Rissveds had come full circle after some troublesome years following her gold medal experience on the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Rissveds was simply 22 years outdated when she claimed the Olympic gold medal eight years in the past. Not having the instruments to deal with the stress, each inner and exterior that adopted that historic victory, she struggled with melancholy and an consuming dysfunction and inside a 12 months of successful the Olympic title, left the game. She took a two-year hiatus to hunt remedy and easily experience her bike for enjoyable, earlier than returning in 2019.
Since her return to racing in 2019, she has gained seven World Cups and positioned 14th within the cross-country occasion on the Tokyo Olympics.
Now 30 years outdated, Rissveds proudly stood smiling on the rostrum.
“Now I really feel relieved. It feels so nice to return full circle after the gold in Rio and what occurred in between. It feels so rattling good to have the ability to set such a superb race. I’ll positively take pleasure in and really feel the delight of this race,” Rissveds instructed Eurosport after the race.
“It feels very large and I’m so very completely happy and proud, above all.”
The battle was heated within the ladies’s race for the silver and bronze medals after France’s Ferrand-Prévot left everybody behind on the second lap and soloed to victory. By the third lap, Rissveds, Laura Stigger (Austria) and Haley Batten (United States) have been chasing collectively in what gave the impression to be a battle for bronze till simply forward Puck Pieterse (Netherlands) punctured and fell out of competition for silver.
“For me, it wasn’t that dramatic, however there was a lot occurring round me on a regular basis. It’s so ‘overcharged’ at an Olympics,” Rissveds added. “I simply thought of doing my half and driving with what I had for the day. I had a whole lot of confidence and calm in me.”
Strongest on the climb firstly of lap 6, Rissveds and Batten have been duelling for the silver with a surging Pieterse behind them. The American was in a position to achieve a number of seconds on an uphill part on the ultimate lap the place she held the hole by the feed zone the place she didn’t take a bottle.
Rissveds crossed the road six seconds after Batten and shortly congratulated the 2 riders that completed forward of her.
A distraught Pieterse, who completed fourth, lodged a protest on Batten for not taking a bottle within the feed zone however Rissveds dismissed the incident.
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