BENTONVILLE, Ark. — "It's all been a whirlwind," professional mountain biker Haley Batten said. "It's still hard to believe that I'm an Olympic medalist."
Batten’s second-place finish in the Women’s Cross Country Mountain Bike race at the 2024 Paris Olympics was the highest-ever finish for an American in the sport.
"That was just one of the great all-time moments in American cycling," USA Cycling CEO Brendan Quirk said.
Batten's love for mountain biking began at age nine. She said her passion for being on the bike began when she would use it as a means to explore the cities she traveled to with her family.
According to USA Cycling, Batten won her first National Championship title at 14 and turned professional at 17. Her first elite World Cup win came this year.
Batten said this year had been filled with highs and lows, suffering a concussion and a minor Achilles injury that she was able to recover from.
"One second I was on the starting line of the race, and next I was finishing, being swept away, going through media, answering lots of questions, and just celebrating the whole thing," Batten said. "I don't think I'd had a lot of the struggles that I had going into this one, and it's been way more meaningful."
From Park City, Utah, and now a resident of Santa Cruz, California, racing professionally has taken Batten all over the world. To help train for the Olympics, Batten and the USA mountain biking team took advantage of the Northwest Arkansas terrain.
"Northwest Arkansas should feel really proud of itself," Quirk said. "Bentonville is home of the national mountain bike team of USA Cycling, and I was definitely thinking about Arkansas when I was out there watching Haley race. The time she spent there, no doubt, was a factor in why she had such a heroic ride last weekend."
While in Bentonville last June, USA Cycling announced the four mountain bikers who would be competing in the Olympics.
Part of the reason for this, according to Quirk, was due to the similar terrain Bentonville has to the track that the riders would be experiencing in France.
"It has rock gardens. It has jumps. It has a loose on hard terrain ... All of a sudden, I have a whole playground where I can practice almost every element of what's demanded on a whole variety of courses," Batten said. "I think what Bentonville has done there with their infrastructure and terrain and race courses is a lot like what we need for USA Cycling athletes’ development, and also elite riders, to be able to train at the level that's necessary to perform at the world stage.”
Batten not only credits the competitive training Bentonville allows the nation’s top riders, but the cycling community in the city as a whole. She said cycling is a vehicle for transportation, health, and happiness, and it is inspiring when a city promotes it to its residents.
Quirk said people around the country are now looking to move to Northwest Arkansas because of the ease of access to trails and the mountain biking infrastructure.
While Quirk said cycling remains a very Eurocentric sport, cities throughout the U.S. can look to Northwest Arkansas as a blueprint on how to grow the sport at the ground level.
"What this means is come 2032, 2036 when you talk about the American mountain bike team, these are going to be kids who went to Bella Vista High, or these are going to be kids who went to Fayetteville High," Quirk said. "It's because the infrastructure is there and the programs are there. Northwest Arkansas has very deliberately built that for mountain biking, and it's going to reap the benefits for it."
While the Olympics are coming to a close, Quirk said the cycling season continues throughout the rest of the year with events in October in Northwest Arkansas.
As Batten continues to celebrate her silver medal performance with her family, she said she already looks forward to getting back to Northwest Arkansas.
"No doubt I'll be there," Batten said. "Not just for the training and the racing, but the environment in Bentonville and the cycling-friendly community. It's easy to feel right at home as a cyclist, and I think a lot of people are feeling that as well."
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