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Tom Pidcock (Great Britain) efficiently defended his cross-country mountain bike gold on the Paris Olympic Games, capping a comeback for the ages within the closing meters of the 86-minute race following a puncture earlier on.
The 24-year-old beat dwelling favorite Victor Koretzky (France) to take the win with a canny transfer up the within of a left-hand nook within the part of forest on the very finish of the ultimate lap.
The overtake, which nearly led to a coming-together as Koretzky narrowly averted a collision together with his rival’s rear wheel, put the Frenchman firmly within the silver medal place.
He completed second at 9 seconds down, two seconds up on Alan Hatherly (South Africa), who had earlier been a part of the three-man lead group on the head of the race.
Pidcock’s hopes of emulating Julien Absalon (2004-08) in efficiently defending the boys’s Olympic gold medal appeared to probably be lifeless and buried on lap 4 as he punctured out of the main place, rejoining 38 seconds down on Koretzky.
The Frenchman was set on a path in the direction of making it two golds throughout the boys’s and ladies’s races after Pauline Ferrand-Prévot triumphed within the girls’s race on Sunday.
However, the chasers behind, particularly, Pidcock, would have their say.
Lap by lap, the Briton reduce via the sphere, decreasing his drawback till he and Hatherly – picked up alongside the best way as he sped again to the entrance – caught Koretzky firstly of the ultimate lap.
The trio have been all set for a mammoth battle on the ultimate run to the road, with Pidcock kicking off proceedings by attacking on the mid-lap climb. The trio caught collectively, no less than till Koretzky countered on the subsequent hill.
That slicing acceleration distributed with Hatherly, leaving it as much as a two-man battle for gold. That battle was determined within the forest moments earlier than the end line as Pidcock selected the within line, passing and blocking out Koretzky, who might supply little in the best way of resistance as he noticed his gold medal hopes vanish.
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