Once a fringe sport in California, mountain biking became mainstream during the 1970s due, in part, to the Velo Club Mount Tamalpais. Members of the club organized Repack Downhill, a regularly occurring race near the Golden Gate Bridge from 1976 to 1979. The first national mountain biking championship race was held in 1983, and seven years later, the International Cycling Union hosted the first-ever World Championships for mountain biking. The sport became an official Olympic event at the Atlanta Games in 1996.
Mountain biking at the Atlanta Games was held at the Georgia International Horse Park. The trail was longer than 9 miles and had 1,032 feet of elevation change. Bart Brentjens of the Netherlands won gold in the inaugural men's race with a finish time of 2:17:38, while Thomas Frischknecht (Switzerland) and Miguel Martinez (France) won silver and bronze, respectively. Martinez, whose father Mariano won the Polka Dot jersey in the 1978 Tour de France, won gold in mountain biking four years later at the Sydney Olympic Games.
Italian Paola Pezzo finished the women's race at 1:50:51 to win gold, while Alison Sydor (Canada) and Susan Demattei (United States) won silver and bronze, respectively. Pezzo, a former world champion and favorite to win the race, overcame an early fall to defeat Sydor by more than one minute. Twenty-nine women participated in the race, representing Australia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Argentina.
At the Sydney 2000 Games, Miguel Martinez of France finished first in the mountain bike race with a time of 2:09:02.50. Filip Meirhaeghe (Belgium) won silver, while Christoph Sauser (Switzerland) won bronze. Ten of the 49 athletes in the event failed to finish the race.
Italian Paola Pezzo, similar to her performance at the Atlanta Games four years before, overcame an early deficit to win the gold medal as a repeat Olympic champion. Barbara Blatter (Switzerland) and Margarita Fullana (Spain) won silver and bronze, respectively.
Subsequent gold medal winners in the men's race have included France's Julien Absalon (Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008), Czech Republic's Jaroslav Kulhavy (London 2012), and Nino Schurter (Rio de Janeiro 2016). The women's gold medal winners have been Norway's Gunn Rita Dahle-Flesjå (Athens 2004), Germany's Sabine Spitz (Bejing 2008), France's Julie Bresset (London 2012), and Sweden's Jenny Rissveds (Rio de Janeiro 2016).
A mountain biking competition was held for the seventh time in Olympic history at the Tokyo 2020 Games, which took place in July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The race took place on the 2.55-mile Izu Mountain Bike Course, which was designed to be more difficult than previous Olympic courses and included various steep ascents and descents. The course also boasts an elevation change of about 150 meters and features views of Mt. Fuji. Riders were required to complete multiple laps of the course, and those whose lap time was 80 percent slower than the leader's first lap were eliminated.
Thomas Pidcock became the first mountain bike gold medalist from Great Britain as he finished the course in 1:25:14, 20 seconds ahead of Mathias Flueckiger from Switzerland. David Serrano Valero (Spain) won the bronze medal, while former Olympic champion Nino Schurter (Switzerland) finished fourth. Schurter is a three-time Olympic medalist and has won eight World Championships.
On the women's side, it was a clean sweep for Switzerland. Jolanda Neff won the gold medal at a time of 1:15:46. She finished more than one minute ahead of teammates Sina Frei and Linda Indergand, who won the silver and bronze medals, respectively. This was the first time all three mountain biking medalists represented the same country.
