Riding a prototype Giant Anthem XC bike and wheels, Hatherly was in a class of his own at the Elite Men's Olympic Cross-Country (XCO) World Championship, going clear on the second of nine laps to ultimately win by 48 seconds.
Midway through the second lap, while riding at the front of the 74-rider field, Hatherly took advantage of a bobble by France’s Victor Koretzky, which caused a bottleneck for the riders behind. Hatherly quickly opened a 15-second lead, which extended to over 90 seconds and forced a five-man chase group to concede they were racing for silver and bronze.
"I just had one of those days,” Hatherly said. “It'll be hard for me to repeat a performance like that. All the stars aligned. Beforehand, I said it would be a time trial and not so much a tactical race. I approached it that way by taking the initiative right away and making it a time trial from start to finish.”
Though Hatherly slowed on the final laps, there was little doubt that he would spend another season wearing the rainbow jersey. “With two or three laps to go I started to feel the effort of going so early, but the gap was so big I could just consolidate my position."
Behind Hatherly, Swiss riders Mathias Flückiger and Luca Schätti were in contention for a medal on home soil, but Italian Simone Avondetto put together a strong final lap to take silver, while Koretzky snatched the final podium spot, narrowly edging out the Swiss duo.
Hatherly's demonstrative victory on the sport’s biggest stage was a vindicating performance. He spent the first months of the year racing with Giant’s WorldTour road racing partner Team Jayco AlUla. He finished sixth overall at the AlUla Tour, an early season stage race in Saudi Arabia, and won the South African national time trial championship, but he fell ill during the spring classics and crashed heavily during his return to World Cup mountain bike racing in May.
Though he had not yet registered a win in his rainbow jersey, a fourth-place finish at the Les Gets World Cup on August 31 showed that Hatherly was not far from the top of the field.
“It has been a strange year for me, riding on the road for Jayco-AlUla,” he said. “The combination was difficult. I found it difficult to find the balance between the two disciplines, but since a month ago, I have focused entirely on mountain biking and done all my training on a mountain bike. Obviously, it worked out very well. Les Gets, a few weeks ago, gave me the final confidence boost I needed. It's a dream to win for the second time in a row.”
