On Tuesday, USA Cycling president and CEO Brendan Quirk announced the four athletes who will represent Team USA in mountain biking at the Paris Olympics next month.
For the women, the team includes Haley Batten of Park City, Utah and Savila Blunk from Inverness, California. While Christopher Blevens and Riley Amos - both from Durango, Colorado - make up the men's team. This is the first Olympics for Blunk and Amos - Batten and Blevens both competed in the 2020 Tokyo games.
"Our athletes at the highest level of the sport are getting the best results we have ever seen from Americans at the world cup and world championships," Quirk said. "We are also seeing higher and higher participation in junior levels... and northwest Arkansas is one of the hotbeds of junior mountain biking."
This is the first time the US has had a full team - two men and two women - enter the mountain bike event since it was introduced back in 1996. Teams need to rank in the top eight globally in order to send two athletes - the American women are third while the men are ranked fifth.
Bentonville became the official home of the U.S. national mountain bike team in 2022 - USA Cycling's headquarters is in Colorado Springs. And Quirk, an Arkansas native, said the more than 250 miles of off-road trails, plus the climate, make this region a perfect fit for elite mountain bikers.
"You can ride year-round here," he said. "The other thing is the availability of more entry level, intermediate level trails here... you can really progress in northwest Arkansas because of the diversity of the terrain."
He also noted the terrain here is similar to what Olympians will face next month. The three-mile Elancourt Hill course is one hour west of Paris and has 330-feet of elevation, which riders will lap five to seven times.
Bentonville is eager to capitalize on that status as a home for world-class mountain biking. Kalene Griffith is the CEO of Visit Bentonville and said the investment the city has put into trails and recreation is finally paying off.
"It's exciting for us as a community to highlight that our trails are that expert of a level for the USA Cycling team," she said. "We want to stay at the front of mind as a destination for cycling and this gives us national and international exposure."
All of the athletes on Team USA have spent time training in northwest Arkansas and Team USA coach Anneke Beerten lives in Bentonville. Fayetteville's Centennial Park is also home to one of the qualifying national pro-cup events.
Quirk said he is optimistic that this 2024 team will be able to bring home the country's first Olympic medal in mountain biking.
"Honestly," he said. "I think the other countries are now looking at us and they are the one's who are nervous."
The women's mountain bike competition takes place on Sunday, July 28, and the men's competition on Monday, July 29. Events will be streamed live on the NBC Peacock app. Griffith said Visit Bentonville does plan on hosting watch parties for both events, to be announced by Visit Bentonville.
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