One of the best things about the Olympics is that nothing is set in stone. An athlete who has their best day can (and often does) beat the favorites and make it onto the podium. And that’s exactly what happened in the women’s Olympic road cycling race on August 4.
At that time, Team USA Kristen Faulkner When she won the gold medal, the competitors and the spectators were shocked. And she winFaulkner dramatically picked up the pace in the final three kilometers of the 158-kilometer race, overtaking the leaders to win by nearly a minute over the silver medalist from the Netherlands and the bronze medalist from Belgium.
Faulkner’s medal marks the sixth gold medal won by the United States in road cycling since it became an Olympic sport in 1896. She is the first American woman to win a gold medal since 1984, Faulkner said. NBCAnd she wasn’t supposed to be there.
Forkner, 31, qualified to compete in Paris as part of the U.S. team in the track race, but not the road race, and on July 9, less than a month before the road race, he was named to the U.S. Cycling Federation. Announced Faulkner Taylor Nib Spot. (Nibb decided to focus on the time trial and triathlon competitions in Paris.)
But given the unconventional path that led Faulkner to the pinnacle of the sport, this last-minute withdrawal from the Olympics comes as no surprise.
Faulkner grew up in the small town of Homer, Alaska, the center of the self-proclaimed world’s largest halibut fishery. NBC NewsFaulkner says her parents made her and her siblings “do all the jobs in the restaurants in the hotels they owned,” which must have instilled in her a serious work ethic. Faulkner studied computer science at Harvard and rowed for the varsity team for two years.
Before college, Faulkner grew up in a “very outdoorsy” family, but in an interview with NBC News, her favorite activity was hiking, not biking. She attended high school at Phillips Andover Academy and was on the rowing, swimming and running teams, but hadn’t yet donned a helmet or clip-in shoes. It wasn’t until Faulkner moved to New York City and took a job in investment banking that she had to look elsewhere to satisfy her “craving for the outdoors.”
That’s where road cycling comes in: She recounts how in 2017 she borrowed a friend’s bike to attend a women’s introductory cycling clinic in Central Park. american cycling“I put on running shorts and sneakers and learned how to run around the cones,” she said.
After a bit of trial and error, Faulkner figured out how to properly clip into her road bike and hasn’t looked back since. She would regularly wake up at 5 a.m. and ride her bike for two hours in Central Park before heading to the office. After placing third in her first beginner race, Faulkner began competing in more weekend races and quickly moved up the rankings.
In 2018, she moved to San Francisco to train full time with the TIBCO Silicon Valley Bank team. She raced on the European circuit and was on the podium multiple times. She won her first professional race in 2020, after which she quit her job and began racing professionally. NBC News According to reports, she competed as part of the U.S. team at the 2021 and 2022 World Championships.
Now, just seven years after clipping in for the first time, Faulkner has about 48 hours to bask in the glory of her well-deserved gold medal before taking to the stage again for the women’s team pursuit preliminaries on Aug. 6 and the final the following day.
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