Among the finest 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 ladies’s Olympic street biking race on August 4.
That’s when Group 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 street biking because it turned an Olympic occasion in 1896. She’s the primary American girl to win gold since 1984, in response to NBC. And she or he wasn’t even presupposed to be there.
Faulkner, 31, certified to compete in Paris for Group USA in monitor biking, not street biking. Then lower than a month earlier than the street race, on July 9, USA Biking introduced that Faulkner would take Taylor Knibb’s spot. (Knibb determined to deal with 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 resort restaurant” they owned. This should have instilled a severe work ethic; Faulkner went on to review laptop science at Harvard, the place she rowed varsity crew for 2 years.
Earlier than school, although Faulkner grew up in what she describes as a “fairly outdoorsy” household, her exercise of alternative was mountain climbing, not biking, as she instructed 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: street 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 instructed USA Biking. “I confirmed up in working shorts and sneakers and I realized easy methods to trip across the cones,” she stated.
After somewhat trial and error, Faulkner discovered easy methods to correctly clip right into a street bike—and he or she didn’t look again. She would commonly get up at 5:00 a.m. to trip 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 shortly moved up within the rankings.
In 2018, she moved to San Francisco to coach full-time with staff Tibco Silicon Valley Financial institution. She raced on the European circuit, the place she had a number of podium finishes. She give up her job in 2020 to race professionally after she received 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 staff pursuit occasion on August 6, adopted by the finals the subsequent day.
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