“I would like to be born again and to race today because I think it's the best period in history.”
This is how XC racing legend José Antonio Hermida describes the depth of talent that will line up for the XC mountain bike events this weekend at the Paris Olympics.
Heady praise from an athlete with Hermida’s palmares.
The much-loved Spaniard retired in 2017 after a 20-year racing career, culminating in his dominant performance in the 2010 World Championships. He also took silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics and fourth at the London 2012 Olympics.
Since retiring, Hermida has continued to work with Merida as an ambassador but has also moved into testing new and prototype bikes.
He also works with Red Bull TV, commentating on cross-country events in Spanish and English.
Despite officially retiring from professional riding in 2017, Hermida returned briefly to top-level racing with Joaquim Rodriguez at the 2019 Absa Cape Epic.
Listen to the BikeRadar Podcast
You can listen to Jack Luke's interview with José Hermida on the BikeRadar Podcast using the player below. Otherwise, head to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your usual podcast provider.
“Tom Pidcock is a genius”
Speaking to BikeRadar in 2017 on the eve of his retirement, Hermida said he was unsure if he would move from his role as a professional rider to being a coach – “I’m not sure I’d want to be director sportif – I’d be a dictator sportif”.
Despite his reservations, Hermida revealed he worked closely with Team GB’s Tom Pidcock in the run-up to the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Pidock took gold, beating Switzerland’s Mathias Flückiger and Spain’s David Valero.
While Pidcock had ample support from Ineos, the team didn’t have any experience in mountain biking.
“In 2019, the guys from Ineos contacted me and they asked me – ‘okay, Tom Pidcock wants to win the Olympics, and we need a little help’.
“They had a lot of information about nutrition and training, but everything was [based on] road riding – they had no knowledge of mountain biking.
“I had met Tom years before, so I knew his personality and his riding, so he called me… and kind of like Tetris, we worked out where I could fit in.”
Hermida says his involvement was more soft-touch – rather than developing rigorous training plans, he instead advised on tech and where to train.
Before Pinarello developed its own Dogma XC bike – which the brand has admitted was designed specifically for Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot – Hermida helped Pidock test bikes, eventually settling on a BMC Fourstroke.
“Some [he was] allowed to test, some not, because Pinarello had some ideas – ‘Okay, this brand, you cannot touch because they are enemies!”
He went as far as helping Pidock test a special short-life sealant designed specifically for the Olympics.
A normal tyre sealant will last around four to six months depending on conditions, but the special latex-rich sealant used by Pidcock would last for only one week. “It was kind of like glue but, after one week, it was like asphalt,” explains Hermida.
While the tech and training played an important role in Pidcock’s success, Hermida describes him as “a genius”.
“Tom can make a lot of mistakes – he is human – but he’s making fewer mistakes and… he won the Olympics and World Cups, but made it look easy.
Of course, it was not easy. “Just one week before, he was training here with me, even riding an ebike, I couldn’t follow him – he trains like a machine… recovers well, and is really picky with nutrition, all because he knew he wanted to win the Olympics.”
Hermida raced in five Olympic events across his career, but never took gold, so seeing Pidcock win was an emotional moment, “It was like winning the Olympics for myself," he recalls.
“I raced five times and couldn’t make it. When Tom won the Olympics, his medal was for him but [what I] lost in my Olympics, I got it with Tom.”
A contentious course
Pidcock lines up as a favourite again for the 2024 event, but he's no fan of the course.
Located around 31km outside of Paris, the punchy man-made 4km course sits atop a 230m hill, with a layer of compacted gravel sitting atop the shale.
Though it has some sketchy drops and rock gardens, the technical difficulty pales in comparison to courses such as Crans-Montana seen on the World Cup circuit, with Pidcock describing it as “bland”.
Though he admits he prefers natural courses, Hermida thinks the Paris Olympics course will still make for great viewing, ultimately benefitting the sport
“Obviously, a mountain bike course in the Olympics is completely different to a regular World Cup, where you have a course in Canada or Switzerland up in the mountains, or a ski area such as Andorra.
“For the Olympics, obviously you have to make it close to the city, or close to the Olympic village.
“We saw it in Bejing, where it was a small mountain – it was actually a garbage dump covered with tons of material to make it a course. It was the same in London.
“We sacrifice a little with the philosophy of mountain biking [with a man-made course], but the big platform that it offers us – for our sport, for our community, to make it more visible around the world – I think that’s fair.”
Hermida draws comparisons between the London 2012 course at Hadleigh Farm and the Paris Olympics course. “I think the dynamic of the race, or the competition in terms of performance, is going to be quite similar," he says.
“It's completely artificial, with a lot of rock gardens and a lot of jumps, but the surface is super-fast.
“We will see a super-interesting race, with a lot of riders together till the last lap because the technical parts of the Paris [course] won’t make a big difference.
“All the riders are more or less at the same level, and a couple of artificial rock gardens won’t make a big difference because there’s only one line.”
This close racing is less common in conventional World Cup racing on natural courses.
“We see a lot of differences in technique between riders when it's natural,” explains Hermida.
“The course changes and changes with each lap. That makes a big difference when you are a technical rider, or a rider that can improvise a new line.
"On an artificial course, there is only one line. You stay there, full-gas engine, don't think too much, don't make mistakes and don't move off the line.”
Full-sus to dominate
Nearly all cross-country riders now race on full-suspension bikes.
This is, in part, due to UCI rules – riders only ever use hardtails for short track racing. However, regulations dictate riders competing in both the short track and regular XCO races, which are generally held back-to-back on the same weekend, ride the same bike for both events.
This isn’t the case with the Olympics. With only one XC MTB discipline in contention, riders can race on whichever bike they please.
Regardless, Hermida believes all riders in serious contention for the win will race on full-suspension bikes.
”They ride maybe 80 per cent of the year on a full-suspension bike, so they are used to the position – in fact, most of the riders probably don’t even have a hardtail.”
“I’m old-school, so would probably ride a hardtail, but riders will definitely ride short-travel bikes, like the Trek Supercaliber, Specialized Epic World Cup or BH’s unreleased short-travel bike.”
29in wheels changed everything
While discussing tech, Hermida throws back to the massive impact the arrival of 29in wheels had on XC racing.
Hermida explains that, until 2010, when 29in wheels arrived (displacing 26in wheels), technically gifted riders were at a real advantage.
“For example, between Nino Schurter and Jaroslav Kulhavý, when they were on 26in wheels, there was a big gap”, explains Hermida.
“But from the day they both rode on 29in wheels, the difference was reduced completely.
“We can see that with Kulhavý – a tall guy without [Nino’s] super technique – won the Olympics in London, but he was a guy that, two years before, couldn't make a top 20 in a World Cup.”
He believes the increased capability of 29in wheels is one of the reasons why courses became more technical.
Regardless, he believes the newest generation of riders are more technically skilled than ever. “The top 20 riders all have the technical skills," he says.
“They come from a BMX route, or they ride motorcycles, gravel bikes, cyclocross, or downhill – they do back flips!
“Now we see such crazy images – like the first World Cups in Brazil, where on the big jumps we could see Christopher Blevins doing a double jump and then a manual, Victor Koretzky and Nino Schurter doing signature whips.”
“The Russian method”
While courses, riding technique and bike tech have visibly changed, Hermida says training is also unrecognisable from his racing days.
“In the old times it was a Russian method – you know, it was like a train, train, train, train, train and just the strongest will survive.
“Nowadays, the training methods are more efficient, more scientific – they control the training, the nutrition, the bike tech.
“[When I raced], it was like ‘Okay, tomorrow is going to be a hard race, so we eat two dishes of pasta' – that was it."
Though “more professional and scientific”, Hermida thinks this has come at the cost of personality in the sport.
“These guys never hammer it and have to stop in a gasoline station to buy doughnuts and a Coca-Cola nowadays – everything is so controlled.”
With a constant feed of data, Hermida says contemporary riders may be a bit “like robots”, but concedes that’s the only way to the top.
José Hermida’s 2024 Olympic XC predictions
Women’s race
Defending women’s champion Jolanda Neff had to withdraw from the Olympics just three weeks out due to unresolved issues with her lungs.
Hermida paises her integrity. “This is super-generous from Neff," he says. "To give your spot to another competitor in Switzerland [2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Sina Frei] is super-generous.”
With Neff out of the picture, Hermida marks out Britain’s Evie Richards as a key rider to watch.
“I think it’s a course that suits Richards. She’s probably a rider that cannot maintain full fitness for the full season… but for a single-day race, she’s there, especially on such a fast course like Paris,” explains Hermida.
Switzerland’s Alessandra Keller and Team USA’s Haley Batten are also on Hermida’s shortlist.
Keller is a top short-track racer. Hermida thinks her explosive power and “hot-blooded racing style” will benefit her in Paris.
France’s own Pauline Ferrand-Prévot shouldn’t be ruled out either: “The only thing missing from her Wikipedia page is an Olympic medal.”
Men’s race
As for the men’s race, Hermida’s heart beats for Victor Koretzky, who he singled out as a rider to watch in our 2017 interview.
“In 2017, I was in love with Victor Koretzky,” says Hermida.
“He's a guy with a lot of character and personality – and a guy that has fun on a mountain bike. He’s now won World Cups… and has shown he’s a real candidate for the Olympics.
“If the race finishes with a sprint, he’s going to win the sprint.”
“The problem for Koretzky is that he’ll have Tom Pidcock on his side”, Hermida adds.
Pidcock raced two World Cups in 2024, winning both “easily”, but had to withdraw before stage 14 of the Tour de France due to Covid.
Pidcock has since said he’s feeling “fine”, but will also have to balance his performance in the XC event with his duties on the road.
Merida also marks out New Zealand’s Sam Gaze, Britain’s Charlie Aldridge, and South Africa’s Alan Hatherly as riders to watch.
And what about Switzerland’s Nino Schurter? At 38, he’s one of the most successful XC mountain bikers of all time and is still winning World Cups. Hermida reckons he could make the top three.
If it does come down to a sprint, Hermida thinks the finish will be “carnage”.
“A finish with Tom Pidcock, Victor Koretzky and Sam Gaze will be a super killer sprint,” he predicts.
“I would like to be born again…”
Hermida wouldn’t be drawn on his overall pick for either race.
“Somehow, they are all my friends, and I'm just super-happy they will deliver a mega show for us.
“I’ve said in a couple of interviews that I would like to be born again and to race in this period, because I think it's the best period in history.
“There are so many talented riders… and it must be so cool to race against them.
“Even if you lose a race against them… you grow as a person and as a rider, and we’ll enjoy a big show on Sunday and Monday.”
