Tokyo (AFP)

Loana Lecomte, the explosive revelation of the season in mountain biking, will be the best chance for a French gold medal in Tokyo in her discipline, with Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, even if for men Jordan Sarrou and Victor Koretzky will also run for the wins.

"In recent months the France team has returned to its highest level", welcomes the DTN Christophe Manin, who fully assumes the ambitions: "We are clearly in favorites among the women, and very credible underdogs among the men".

The team finished its preparation for CREPS in Boulouris (Var), on a mountain bike stadium where the most difficult passages of the very technical course of Izu had been specifically reproduced, 140 km from Tokyo, which will welcome men on Monday and the ladies Tuesday.

Among the ladies, Lecomte is, at 21, the logical favorite.

The young girl who started mountain biking at the age of eight at the Carroz d'Arâches club in Haute-Savoie, has tumbled this season in the World Cup by winning her first four races, with a comfortable margin over her rivals.

- "Above the lot" -

"We always dream of it, but I did not expect it", she confessed in an interview with AFP carried out before the departure for Tokyo, "but for the Games, I do not tell myself that I am favorite. I'm going to find out, I don't put myself under pressure. I take each race as a new race. "

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Unbeaten this season, the 2020 U21 world champion who, as a teenager, hesitated between skiing and mountain biking, flew over the French Championships on July 10 for her last test gallop, relegating Pauline Ferrand-Prévot to more than one minute thirty.

But at 29, "PFP" has enough experience to believe in her chances in Japan: triple world champion in cross-country mountain biking (Olympic distance) in 2015, 2019 and 2020, she was also world champion on the road. (2014), in mixed mountain bike relay, in marathon mountain bike, and in cyclo-cross (2015).

"Loana is more favorite than me (...) she is above the rest," she said, however, arriving in Tokyo, just to put pressure on her young rival.

Lecomte's chances are all the greater as the Izu circuit seems designed for her: "I ran there in 2019 for a + test event + and I loved it," she says, "it's real mountain biking. modern, with technical passages, steps, technical jumps, it is both physical and explosive ".

- Featured Van der Poel -

The gentlemen also have a great card to play.

Sarrou is the reigning world champion, and Koretzky has a revenge to take on bad luck, after his mishap at the Rio Games in 2016: "I had a puncture in the race which cost me a medal, recalls. it, and I really want to catch up on the Tokyo Games ”.

The presence of Mathieu van der Poel, who wore the yellow jersey of the Tour de France for six days at the beginning of July, will give an additional spotlight on the event.

The Dutchman, Raymond Poulidor's grandson, comes to win: he left the Tour on the way to better prepare and be at his peak of form on July 26.

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Switzerland's Nino Schurter will aim for a fourth consecutive Olympic medal, after bronze in Beijing-2008, silver in London-2012 and gold in Rio-2016.

And his compatriot Mathias Flückiger, double vice-world champion and impressive winner of the last World Cup stage in Les Gets on July 4, will also be among the big favorites of the event, as will the Czech Ondrej Cink, current runner-up in the world cup behind Flückiger.

© 2021 AFP