ELLANCORT, France (AP) — Haley Batten has been fined by the French Football Federation (FFF) for… olympic mountain bike referees For breaking a rule on the final lap of her race on Sunday, though she will no doubt gladly pay the modest penalty after her silver medal was the best result ever for an American rider.
Patten was competing for second place with Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds, Far behind eventual heroine Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.When she passed through a designated food and drink lane or stopped due to mechanical problems. But after the stewards reviewed the footage, they decided that Button had done neither and had broken a racing rule.
She was fined 500 Swiss francs, or about $565, for “failure to respect the instructions of the race organization or commissioners,” although the judges apparently decided the infraction was not serious enough to warrant disqualification.
That didn’t detract from Patten’s fine day, who finished ninth three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics.
“I knew before Tokyo that this was the race I was focused on,” she said. “I’ve known for a long time that I could do well here and Tokyo was – I wanted to be on the podium there, but I wasn’t fully prepared to be honest. I prepared better to be the best I could be. For me, the preparation was in the details, studying and building every year.”
The 25-year-old from Park City, Utah, was at the forefront of A New Wave of American Mountain Bike TalentThat includes her teammate Savelia Blank, 25, who finished 12th on Sunday, and Christopher Blevins, 26, and Riley Amos, 22, who will compete in the men’s race on Monday.
The fact that Batten was racing on Elancourt Hill, the Olympic mountain bike race outside Paris, was not a complete surprise. She proved she is among the world’s elite when she won this year’s World Cup race in Araxa, Brazil.
But Batten has also had to overcome a concussion that forced her to miss last year’s world championships in Scotland, and more recently, a minor Achilles tendon injury suffered at the IAAF World Short Course Championships in Crans-Montana in the Swiss Alps.
Batten also had to overcome adversity in Sunday’s race. She suffered a puncture but was fortunate to be close to the American team mechanic, who quickly changed it and got her back in the race. Batten dropped to sixth but recovered, then swapped places with Rissveds on the final lap before pulling away to take the silver medal.
Her brother Nash Patten said he was amazed to see his sister achieve her Olympic dream.
“I have been fortunate enough to have been her role model my entire life,” he said Sunday. “And now, she has become a role model for millions more. It is a true honor.”
The only other medals won by the United States were the bronze medals won by Susan De Mattei in 1996 and Georgia Gould in 2012.
“Being able to perform in one day is a real challenge, and everyone at the Olympics is the best in the world,” said Patten, who is partly trained by three-time Olympic time trial champion Kristin Armstrong.
“Everyone is strong, everyone is in good physical condition. Everyone is well prepared and can ride to the best of their ability. So to be able to clear my mind and prepare and race to the best of my ability, regardless of the challenges before and during the race, is amazing.”
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Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed from Park City, Utah.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
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