American cyclist Kristen Faulkner shocked the cycling world when she won the women’s road race with a time of 3:49:23, 58 seconds ahead of her competitors on Sunday. She wasn’t even supposed to be in the race. The last time an American woman won the race was in 1984, Connie Carpenter-Phinney, in the women’s road race Olympic debut.
The 31-year-old was only supposed to compete in the track cycling’s team pursuit event in her Olympic debut. When teammate Taylor Knibb resigned from the race to focus on her triathlon event, a door opened for Faulkner. It was less than a month before the 2024 Paris Games were set to begin.
Faulkner is a relatively newcomer to the sport. She only started cycling in 2017. She lived in NYC and wanted an outdoor activity to balance out her full-time job and tried a free class in NYC’s central park.
She told NBC Sports, “I showed up in running shorts and sneakers, and we learned how to clip in and ride around cones,” she wrote. “A few weeks later I won my first race, and that’s when I knew I wanted to see how far I could go in the sport.”
In a field full of veteran riders like 2012 gold medalist Marianne Vos and world champion Lotte Kopecky (the silver and bronze medalist in the 2024 Olympic road race) her rise to the top was quick.
SEE MORE: U.S. cyclist Kristen Faulkner wins shocking gold medal in women’s road race
She quit her venture capitalist job in 2021 to pursue training full time. She won the 2024 U.S. Pro Road Race and only had three Grand Tour stage wins over the past two years, not nearly as many as her competitors that surrounded her at the end of the women’s race in Paris.
Even though she liked road cycling more and rides professionally for EF Education-Cannondale, it was track cycling that initially qualified her for the Olympics. USA Cycling invited her to Colorado Springs in 2023 to evaluate her potential for the team pursuit program. After that, she competed in a race in February 2024 with the team pursuit squad and was named to the track cycling team after that.
Faulkner tried to qualify for one of the two road race positions available for Americans at the 2024 Games. She just narrowly missed the cut when she lost to Knibb by 11 seconds at the U.S. road cycling time trial championships. Knibb, a triathlete, shocked everyone when she won the race, just her second road cycling race of her professional career.
She doesn’t just excel on the bike. She graduated from Harvard University in 2016 with a degree in computer science. She was a varsity rower for two years in college and currently holds Harvard’s record for the fastest 2k erg (indoor rowing machine) time for lightweight women.
In terms of her personal life, she grew up in Homer, Alaska and is proud to be from the fishing town. She is also passionate about gender equality and supporting more women in technology and entrepreneurship.
She will have a chance to win a second medal at the Games when she hits the track on Tuesday August 6th at 11:30 a.m. ET, in the women’s team pursuit.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.