Coaches View: Catharine Pendrel reports back from Paris XCO Test Event

When four Canadian riders landed in Paris for their first look at the 2024 Olympic mountain bike course, they were led by Cycling Canada coach Catharine Pendrel. Not just a coach, Pendrel is, of course, an Olympic medallist herself. So who better to shepherd the next generation through their first brush with the Olympic experience?

Pendrel’s guidance clearly helped. Gunnar Holmgren rode across the line in fifth, mixing among the legends of the sport. CarterWoods, Jenn Jackson and Emilly Johnston all had impressive results of their own.

We caught up with the four-time Olympian to see what she thought of the Paris course, of the four young athlete’s performances in Paris and what Pendrel, as a coach, was looking to get out of the “not a race” test event.

CanadianMTB: As a rider who has competed at several Olympics, is there anything about the Paris XCO venue that stands out to you?

Catharine Pendrel: I think Paris is pretty representative of other Olympic tracks and new World Cup venues, technical and physically demanding. This track seems particularly fast however. The racing was very high speed and tight in Paris. Lots of groups racing rather than solo moves.

Riders and staff were asked to give feedback to fine-tune the course for next year so for sure we will anticipate some changes, but the same flavour. We learned the area can get extremely muddy and soggy when it rains, but the organizers did a good job weatherproofing the track.

This was a very young group – none have any Olympic or major games experience (though some were just named to the PanAm team). What was it like as a coach bringing them to the test event?

I was impressed at how relaxed the group was. Although young they all bring a lot of experience and helped amplify each other’s learning. We talked about how energy management would be one of the big keys to success next year.

All but Emilly [Johnston] will get their first games experience this fall at the Pan Am Games which will be great exposure. With Emilly, having spent 10 months in Europe with her pro team this year, we decided the home time was more critical to performance.

What was the focus, in terms of what you wanted these young riders to learn from, or take away from the test event?

Our focus was to learn the course, venue and surrounding area: How/where will we warm up? Train when not on…