The women's cross-country

mountain biking Mountain biking is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and pe ...

at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

took place at the

Laoshan Mountain Bike Course The Laoshan Mountain Bike Course () is a mountain bike cycling venue located in western Beijing, China adjacent to the Laoshan Velodrome. It began its renovation and expansion program in May 2006. The course hosted the mountain bike competitions ...

on August 23, 2008.

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

's Sabine Spitz opened up a commanding, one-minute lead from the rest of the field and then stayed out in front to a spectacular finish with a gold-medal time in 1:45:11. Trailing behind the leader by more than forty seconds,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

Maja Włoszczowska Maja Martyna Włoszczowska (Polish pronunciation: ; born 9 November 1983 in Warsaw) is a Polish mountain biker. She is the 2008 and 2016 Olympic silver medalist in cross-country cycling. She is a member of the International Olympic Committee ( ...

took home the silver in 1:45:52, while

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n rider

Irina Kalentieva Irina Nikolayevna Kalentieva (russian: Ирина Николаевна Калентьева) (born 10 November 1977 in Batyrevsky District, Chuvashia) is a retired professional cross-country mountain bike racer from Russia. She won the UCI M ...

held off a tight battle with

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Catharine Pendrel Catharine Pendrel (born September 30, 1980) is a Canadian cross-country mountain biker from Harvey Station, New Brunswick. A member of the Canadian National team since 2004, Pendrel was the world champion in cross-country mountain biking in 201 ...

down the final lap to grab the bronze in 1:46:28. Among the 30 mountain bikers who competed in the cross-country race, only eighteen of them managed to complete the full distance.

Competition format

The competition began at 10:00 am with a mass-start in which riders are positioned according to their current world ranking so that the higher-ranked riders are near the front. The cross-country race also involved six laps, with 172 m of elevation change for each, around the 4.45 km course at

. The overall distance of the race was 26.70 km.

Schedule

All times are

China standard time The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08:00 (eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time), even though the country spans almost five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called ''Beijing Tim ...

(

UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. With an estimated population of 1.708 billion living within the time zone, roughly 24% of the world population, it is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a ...

)

Result

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Women's cross-country Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics 2008 Women 2000s in women's mountain biking 2008 in mountain biking 2008 in women's cycle racing Women's events at the 2008 Summer Olympics