On 28 and 29 July 2024, the best cross-country mountain bike riders in the world will descend (pardon the pun) upon the outskirts of Paris and compete for Olympic glory. The track at Elancourt Hill sits at the highest point in the Paris area, but at just 231 metres it could hardly be called vertiginous. Rather incredibly, this tiny hillock has been selected to host the Olympic XCO event for its stunning views of the Eiffel Tower, and the forests surrounding Paris and La Défense.

But why, in a country full of epic mountain ranges and pre-built bike parks, was the XCO track constructed here? And will it live up to the Olympic hype and provide some exciting racing? Who knows, but I can’t wait to find out – here’s how I’ll be watching the Paris Olympics this weekend for free.

Nino Schurter should be right at home at this fast-flowing track with few places to recover. Copyright Bartek Wolinski

The location: Elancourt Hill, Paris

Elancourt Hill has been built specifically for this event, designed by Nick Floros, a world-leading XC Course Designer from South Africa. He’s the man behind the design of the tracks at the Rio and Tokyo Olympic Games, so he has some pedigree – suddenly we feel a bit more optimistic about the site.

We say the area has been built specifically for the event, but what we mean is that the course has been created here. According to the Olympics website, there has been no major infrastructure changes and much of the route is based on existing paths. This helps to keep the impact on the biodiversity to a minimum, and means that the newly created trails can be left as a legacy to the Games for other users.

It’s based on former sandstone quarries, which later became landfill until the 1980s, when it was redeveloped into a public park. The Olympic Committee hopes that the development of Elancourt Hill will allow it to become a “major destination for mountain bike enthusiasts” after the Games. We’re not sure it’ll become quite as popular as Les Gets or Morzine, but maybe we’re wrong.

The Paris Olympic XCO course

If you’re hoping for a natural, techie horror show to let Tom Pidcock strut is skillful stuff on, you might be disappointed. It aint that. However, it’s unclear if Pidcock will even be there to retain his mountain bike XCO gold after pulling out of the Tour with Covid. 

If you want to fully understand the course, we highly recommend watching former Dutch rider, Anneke Beerten’s preview video from last year (watch it above). She talks us through the full course recon with USA rider Hayley Batten.

So what’s it like? You start with a right hander before a slight left, and from there there’s a steep gravelly climb to contend with. At the top, the track narrows and heads into the trees, with some fast, rocky descending before another climb, which goes on for so long, Beerten speeds up the video.

A couple of switchbacks but nothing too technical here, until riders get to the top and cross over the bridge. This is where things start to get more interesting, as the descents start, with several short rock gardens and some jumps to contend with.

Riders head up back towards the bridge they just crossed and turn left back into the woods for some more rocks and swoopy turns through the trees. And then one or two more rocks and drop sections before riders reach the bottom of the course.

After a bit of flat pedalling there’s some singletrack climbing on the outskirts of the woods, before heading back onto the sandstone gravel track that’s going to be synonymous with this course. In essence, it looks like it’s going to be a fast course, with a few technical sections thrown in to catch riders out. So while it won’t be as technical as some of the XCO courses on the World Cup circuit, it should provide some fast racing with plenty of attacking opportunities.

We do also have it on good authority that plenty of the features weren’t included in the Olympic test events, probably because they weren’t finished yet. You can expect the full course to be gnarlier than this then, with more drops and rocky sections to spice it up.

If you want to find out how to watch it, read our guide so you don’t miss any of the action.