Top-of-the-line issues in regards to 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 girls’s Olympic highway biking race on August 4.
That’s when Staff USA’s Kristen Faulkner shocked the competitors and spectators when she received 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 almost 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 Staff USA in observe 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 stated that her dad and mom had her and her siblings “work each single job on the lodge restaurant” they owned. This should 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 informed NBC Information. She attended highschool at Phillips Andover Academy and joined the rowing, swimming, and operating 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 driving in 2017, borrowing a pal’s bike to attend a girls’s introductory biking clinic in Central Park, as she informed USA Biking. “I confirmed up in operating shorts and sneakers and I realized the way to journey across the cones,” she stated.
After a bit trial and error, Faulkner discovered the way to correctly clip right into a highway bike—and he or she didn’t look again. She would frequently get up at 5:00 a.m. to journey for 2 hours in Central Park earlier than heading to the workplace. After inserting 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 workforce 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 received her first professional race, NBC Information studies. And she or he competed for Staff 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 workforce pursuit occasion on August 6, adopted by the finals the following day.
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