“This isn’t even my best right now”: Haley Batten, the top-ranked mountain biker with her sights set on Paris 2024
Tokyo 2020 Olympian Haley Batten is on an absolute tear this season.
The 25-year-old from Park City, Utah, heading to her second Olympics, continues to deliver podium performances at the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Series, to lead the Cross-Country Olympic (XCO) rankings. Batten jumped to the top of the rankings at the second stop of the tour in Araxá, Brazil, with dual wins in the women’s elite XCC and XCO races, marking her first career XCO win.
Throughout this series, she’s landed on the podium in five out of six starts and she swept the 2024 Pan American Mountain Bike Championships, earning two golds.
Batten, along with Savilia Blunk, Christopher Blevins and Riley Amos have been named to the Paris 2024 Olympic Mountain Bike team.
Batten spoke with Olympics.com from her training hub in Girona, Spain, about her incredibly strong start to the UCI World Cup season, her training and approach to competition, and how this Olympic year differs from Tokyo 2020.
As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
Batten’s Olympic dream origin story
Batten shares that she was inspired to pursue a professional mountain bike career when she was 14. There was a very specific moment at a national championships race in Sun Valley, Idaho*,* where she won her first title. At the close of the race, the U.S. Mountain bike Olympians for London 2012 were brought onto the podium and introduced.
Batten shared, "The announcer said, 'This is your Olympic team, and they're racing here at nationals. 'I was like, ‘Wow, this is an Olympic sport?’ I want to do that. I want to be an Olympic athlete. And part of me always believed I could.”
“Honestly, from then on,” she said, “I was kind of relentless, racing a lot and determined. I just love the sport so much, so I just kind of took off from there.”
A few years later, during Batten’s final year in the junior category, she was enlisted to the Luna Pro Team. Her teammates included Olympians Georgia Gould, who went on to win bronze at* London 2012, Canada’s Catherine Pendrel who earned bronze at Rio 2016 and Czechia’s Katerina Nash who competed in both London and Rio.
She said her experience on this team was fundamental to the athlete she has developed into. Specifically, she said, seeing “how humble they all were despite everything they’d accomplished.”
Battens said, “As a kid, you build champions up into this thing. And when you're around them, you realize how human they are, and you see the details of what it takes to be a high-performing athlete in person.”
Haley Batten on her 2024 UCI Mountain Bike World Series podium streak
Batten had actually hoped that this season would be different. Her original goal was to earn her Olympic quota at the 2023 World Championships to take the weight off having to qualify during the World Cup season. But, a biking accident left her with a concussion and she had to miss the World Championships, which meant her path to qualifying was determined by her results at the two first World Cups of this season, both of which were held in the heat of Brazil.
Batten placed third in XCO at the first World Cup of the season in Mairiporã, Brazil and then won her first career XCO event at the second stop in Araxá.
Batten said it was all about the preparation. “There are so many things that can go wrong. And I managed everything. I was able to be really prepared for the heat we had; we had great food. I didn't get sick—all these things you're managing while trying to qualify for the Olympics. I'm super happy with how I prepared.”
Batten has continued to evolve her race strategy since Tokyo
Batten finished ninth at Tokyo 2020. She qualified during her first year of racing elite. Since then, she has continued to develop as a racer both in her training and in her competition.
An elite racer can cross the finish line of an XCO race in under an hour and a half, but Batten’s off-season training includes longer rides. She’ll jump in on four-hour-plus road rides. She said “I can do big, long, hard days. And I think people don’t expect that from mountain bikers.”
She also trains for the attacks and “steep, punchy climbs” needed to move to the front of the pack in racing.
She shared that she has learned much from listening to her body. “Sometimes, when I’m racing, it’s just learning how many times you can go on over the red line.” She shared an example from the most recent World Cup in Nové Mĕsto, where she was pushing early in the race and, upon checking in with herself, realized, “I'm going to mess myself up if I don't slow down now.”
Batten recalibrated and finished second behind France’s Pauline Ferrand Prevot.
Haley Batten on her drive to win
When asked where her competitive spirit comes from during the race, Batten said, “I'm just maximizing my own potential every day. Everybody I race against is only helping me raise my own bar and female sport in general. I respect everybody on the line.”
She added, “I love going hard. I love testing my limits. I love seeing how far I can go.” But for a long time, this “leave-it-all-out-there-till-the-end” approach, as she put it, was a detriment.
The American said she’s been very focused on tactics, focusing instead on timing her attacks. Her strategy had “clicked this season” and she evolved into “being a smarter, more mature rider in training and racing.”
Batten has grown from the mindset of needing to “drop everybody right now” to being okay with racing with the group. She said “If you have the confidence and know you’re prepared, then you know you'll be strong at the end, and you can take it to the line because you believe in that.
“I'm learning that and getting better at that every race,” she said.
Haley Batten of Team United States rides during the Women's Cross-country race at Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Izu, Shizuoka, Japan.
Batten’s schedule is packed leading up to Paris 2024
Batten has a busy season ahead. She has three more World Cups before the Olympic women’s cross-country event on 28 July.
As she takes a rest period following the third World Cup, she said “I honestly feel like this isn’t even my best right now.
“It’s crazy to be in the leader's jersey, but I feel comfortable in it,” she added, also sharing her excitement at the chance for an overall World Cup or World Series title.
But, that’s not her main priority, she said, as this season she’s focused on the Olympics.
“I'm enjoying it now, but it's not my goal,” she said, adding “the only thing that counts now is performance at the Olympic Games, and on that day, that’s all I'm focused on now.”