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BEIJING — Even after countless crashes and mechanical breakdowns, Canada's Marie-Hélène Prémont, the No. 1 cross-country mountain biker in the world, always made a point of finishing every race.
Only once has the 30-year-old silver medalist from Athens, who came to Beijing with her eye on gold, ever quit before crossing the finish line. She was crushed to make that twice on Saturday morning during the race for the Olympic podium. She pulled out about 20 minutes into the race, struggling to breathe and unable to stop her heart from racing as the mercury approached 30C under a blazing sun.
"It's the worst thing that could happen. To stop at the Olympics," Prémont, who hails form Chateau-Richer, Que., said after recovering in a cooling room.
Where Prémont, considered a sure-thing for a medal, failed, Catharine Pendrel of Kamloops, B.C., managed a near-miss.
The 27-year-old Olympic rookie, currently ranked third in the world in the sport, was outsprinted to the finish and missed bronze by nine seconds.
"I'm going to go home and I'm going to have a little moment like 'Oh my God, I lost [third],'" she said after the race, soaked in dirt and sweat, "But you know I made decision that whatever happens, I wasn't going to feel like I lost third. I won fourth."
Thirty women set out on the Laoshan Mountain Bike Course that rambled over about 4.5 kilometres through forests, along single lane tracks, pavement, gravel paths as well as up hills and down them with a total elevation gain of 250 metres.
Prémont was riding strong near the front of the pack during the initial circuit.
"I was feeling very good on the first lap," Prémont said, "Everything was going just perfect."
Then, Spain's Margarita Fullana stopped in front of her just before a steep descent, forcing Prémont to get off and walk her bike down the hill.
"When I got back on my bike my pulse and my breathing just went very high," she said. "I couldn't keep it down.
She took a break to calm herself down, and then another, but pulled herself out during the second lap.
"I just don't know what happened," she said, ruling out heat as a factor.
Indeed, Prémont was preparing for the heat in Beijing.
She had been training in a shed for 30 minutes to an hour a day where the pool pump pushed the mercury to 37C and up to 65 per cent humidity. In preparation for the Athens Games, Prémont brought her exercise bike into a sauna and trained in Phoenix where the temperature hit 42C.
Prémont said she is concerned enough about her heart that she is going to visit her doctor when she returns to Canada.
Canada's national team head coach, Houshang Amiri, who videotaped the course last year and analyzed it metre by metre hoping to give the Canadians a leg up, said the circuit is tough, even tougher in this kind of weather.
"Heat played a big role I believe here," he said.
After six laps of the course, Sabine Spitz of Germany, who dominated throughout the race, crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 45 minutes and 11 seconds covering 26.7 kms. Spitz, who won bronze in Athens, and is the second-ranked rider in the world, crossed the finish line with her bike hoisted above her head to celebrate adding gold to her Olympic medal count.
Next over the line was Maja Wloszczowska of Poland, 1:17 behind.
In a final kick, Irina Kalentyeva of Russia, who was considered a medal favourite, out-pedaled Pendrel to take bronze, 1:26 behind the winner.
Pendrel, who was considered an outside chance at a medal, was upbeat about her performance.
"It was an awesome race. It was amazing out there," she said, "Unfortunately I had a bit of trouble shifting on the last climb and Irina was right on my wheel. I had to put a foot down. She got by me and that was bronze."
Pendrel, who rode the course in competition a year ago and trained in the notoriously hot B.C. interior to prepare, said she too struggled to breathe during the first lap, adding that she only checked her heart rate monitor during the warm up.
"I tried not to look at it during the race because it's just too scary to know that your heart rate is 185 or whatever," she said, "I'm sure I went above 190."
Pendrel's husband and parents greeted her at the finish line.
"I wonder if I should have made a move earlier on. My husband was definitely yelling at me to, but I felt like I did what I could at the point in the race and that's the way I had to race it," she said.
Still, she has no regrets about her performance, especially when she missed the podium to the 2007 world champion and another favourite headed into Beijing.
"It's an awesome result," she said of her fourth place finish, "I've got lots of time ahead of me to try and come back and do it again."
In the men's race, which ran later Saturday, 50 riders pedaled and pumped over eight laps to cover 35.6 km.
Julien Absalon of France, the world's No. 1 ranked rider, defended his Olympic championship finishing the course in 1:55.59 to take gold.
Teammate Jean-Christophe Peraud seized silver, riding 1:07 behind. Nino Schurter of Switzerland rode to bronze 1:53 off the pace.
Both Canadians in the race ran into mechanical problems.
Seamus McGrath, 32, of Millgrove, Ont., who finished ninth in Athens, failed to even complete the course in Beijing after tearing his front tire off the rim during a big drop.
He walked, ran and rode the bare front rim for three kilometres before he could get a replacement wheel, but then he promptly got another flat.
"That's mountain biking. It's part of the game. Flat tires happen. Mechanicals happen all the time. It just sucks that it happens at the Olympics," McGrath said.
Geoff Kabush, 31, of Victoria, who finished ninth at the 2000 Sydney Games and holds a world ranking of ninth, was Canada's best hope for a medal, but he also suffered a flat tire that pushed him back in the pack.
He rode for 2:03.55 to eventually land in 20th sport, the highest finisher among North American men, but it was little consolation for him.
"I needed a perfect race and it didn't happen," Kabush said.
