seleena gom's video: France s Julie Bresset Wins Olympic Gold In Mountain Biking

Julie Bresset crested the final climb of Hadleigh Farm and glanced over her shoulder, and the only thing she saw was thousands of fans cheering her on. The rest of the field was that far behind.The 23-year-old mountain biker from France, competing in her first Olympics, smiled and soaked in the applause. She grabbed a French flag as she coasted toward the gold medal, crossing the finish line and then raising her bike triumphantly over her head. Her entire season boiled down to one moment of unbridled joy. "This season I decided to focus only on the Olympics and it paid off," Bresset said. "The World Cup was not important this season. The only race that mattered was today's race and I won it." In the most dominating way possible. Bresset took advantage of a mistake by defending gold medalist Sabine Spitz of Germany on a rough section of the picturesque course in the English countryside, and then gradually pulled away from the rest of the field, rolling through the last of six laps all alone. Her time was 1 hour, 30 minutes, 52 seconds, more than a minute ahead of Spitz in second. "I took the front of the race and I managed it well," said Bresset, who crashed during a practice ride Thursday and needed seven stitches to close up the cuts. "When I had a gap I told myself, 'Now, I should go,'" she said. "I led until the finish." Spitz added silver to round out her collection of medals — along with gold in Beijing, she won bronze at the 2004 Athens Games. Georgia Gould of the United States earned that color Saturday, the first medal won by an American mountain biker since Susan DeMattai's bronze in 1996. "I knew that a medal was possible. I knew that on my best day I was capable of winning the race," Gould said. "Julie rode a great race today. She was at the front at the start, which was smart." Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa of Norway, who won gold in Athens, was never in contention after puncturing a tire on a remote section of the course and hiking back to her support team.