Team GB mountain biker Evie Richards finished fifth as French favourite Pauline Ferrand-Prevot won a long-awaited cross-country Olympic gold.

On the former quarry site of Elancourt Hill, the highest point in the Paris region, 2021 world champion Richards finished 25 seconds shy of the podium.

It came just three months after the 27-year-old suffered a concussion in a crash during April’s World Cup in Brazil, only getting back on her bike in early June.

Fellow Team GB rider Ella Maclean-Howell finished 23rd on her Olympic debut – 12 years after being inspired to take up the sport by the London 2012 Games.

For Ferrand-Prevot, gold on home soil marked the perfect ending to her mountain bike career.

The 32-year-old is set to retire from the discipline at the end of the year in order to switch her focus to the road.

A five-time cross-country world champion and therefore the most successful female athlete in the sport, Olympic success had eluded her across three previous Games.

But in front of a crowd dominated by the Tricolore, Ferrand-Prevot crossed the line in one hour 26.02 minutes to fill the gap in her palmares, almost three minutes before silver medallist Haley Batten of the United States. Jenny Rissveds of Sweden took bronze.

Ferrand-Prevot’s French team-mate Loana Lecomte had looked set to be on the podium too but a heavy crash ended her race prematurely.