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 street biking race on August 4.
That’s when Group USA’s Kristen Faulkner shocked the competitors and spectators when she gained gold. And he or she didn’t simply win. With a dramatic surge over the last 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 grew to become an Olympic occasion in 1896. She’s the primary American girl to win gold since 1984, based on NBC. And he or she wasn’t even presupposed to be there.
Faulkner, 31, certified to compete in Paris for Group USA in observe 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 give attention to 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 dad and mom had her and her siblings “work each single job on the lodge restaurant” they owned. This will need to have instilled a severe work ethic; Faulkner went on to review pc 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 climbing, not biking, as she advised 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 “outside repair.”
Enter: street biking. She began driving in 2017, borrowing a pal’s bike to attend a ladies’s introductory biking clinic in Central Park, as she advised USA Biking. “I confirmed up in operating shorts and sneakers and I discovered find out how to journey across the cones,” she mentioned.
After a little bit trial and error, Faulkner discovered find out how to correctly clip right into a street bike—and she or he didn’t look again. She would repeatedly 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 group 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 gained her first professional race, NBC Information stories. And he or she 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 heart stage for the qualifying spherical of the ladies’s group pursuit occasion on August 6, adopted by the finals the subsequent day.
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