Top-of-the-line issues concerning the Olympics is that nothing’s set in stone. Athletes having the day of their lives can—and sometimes do—upset occasion favorites to clinch a spot on the rostrum. And that’s just about what occurred within the ladies’s Olympic highway biking race on August 4.
That’s when Group USA’s Kristen Faulkner shocked the competitors and spectators when she gained gold. And she or he didn’t simply win. With a dramatic surge over the past 3 kilometers of the 158-kilometer race, Faulkner sped previous the lead pack and completed practically a full minute forward of the silver and bronze finishers from the Netherlands and Belgium, respectively.
Faulkner’s medal marks the sixth-ever US gold in highway biking because it turned an Olympic occasion in 1896. She’s the primary American girl to win gold since 1984, in keeping with NBC. And she or he wasn’t even speculated to be there.
Faulkner, 31, certified to compete in Paris for Group USA in monitor biking, not highway biking. Then lower than a month earlier than the highway race, on July 9, USA Biking introduced that Faulkner would take Taylor Knibb’s spot. (Knibb determined to concentrate on the time trial and triathlon occasions in Paris.)
However contemplating the unorthodox path that introduced Faulkner to the highest of the game, this last-minute Olympic sub-in is simply par for the course.
Faulkner grew up within the small city of Homer, Alaska, the self-proclaimed halibut fishing capital of the world. In an interview with NBC Information, Faulkner mentioned that her mother and father had her and her siblings “work each single job on the lodge restaurant” they owned. This will need to have instilled a critical work ethic; Faulkner went on to review laptop science at Harvard, the place she rowed varsity crew for 2 years.
Earlier than faculty, although Faulkner grew up in what she describes as a “fairly outdoorsy” household, her exercise of selection was climbing, not biking, as she advised NBC Information. She attended highschool at Phillips Andover Academy and joined the rowing, swimming, and working groups—nonetheless no helmet or clip-in shoe in sight. It wasn’t till Faulkner moved to New York Metropolis for a job in funding banking that she needed to look elsewhere to get her “out of doors repair.”
Enter: highway biking. She began using in 2017, borrowing a good friend’s bike to attend a ladies’s introductory biking clinic in Central Park, as she advised USA Biking. “I confirmed up in working shorts and sneakers and I realized learn how to trip across the cones,” she mentioned.
After a bit trial and error, Faulkner discovered learn how to correctly clip right into a highway bike—and she or he didn’t look again. She would often get up at 5:00 a.m. to trip for 2 hours in Central Park earlier than heading to the workplace. After putting third in her first novice race, Faulkner entered extra weekend races and rapidly moved up within the rankings.
In 2018, she moved to San Francisco to coach full-time with crew Tibco Silicon Valley Financial institution. She raced on the European circuit, the place she had a number of podium finishes. She stop her job in 2020 to race professionally after she gained her first professional race, NBC Information experiences. And she or he competed for Group USA on the 2021 and 2022 World Championships.
Now, simply seven years after clipping in for the primary time, Faulkner will get about 48 hours to bask within the glory of her well-deserved gold medal earlier than she’s again on middle stage for the qualifying spherical of the ladies’s crew pursuit occasion on August 6, adopted by the finals the following day.
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