Paris 2024 Olympics: Kristen Faulkner surprises in the final straight, surprises field and wins gold in the road race for Team USA

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The gold medals keep rolling in for Team USA. And on Sunday, Olympic cyclist Kristen Faulkner won gold in an event that an American woman hasn’t won in 40 years: the road race.

There’s more to the story than the U.S. winning an event it hasn’t won since 1984. It’s that Faulkner wasn’t projected to win. She wasn’t even supposed to compete in the event. She was chosen as a replacement for Taylor Knibb, who dropped out of the road race to pursue other Olympic cycling events, according to The Athletic.

But it was Faulkner’s wheel that crossed the finish line first, an astonishing feat made possible by her skill, strength and perhaps most importantly, her fearlessness.

Throughout the race, Faulkner stayed close to the leading group. After the third and final climb, Faulkner, riding alongside Lotte Kopecky of Belgium, caught up with the leading group consisting of Blanka Vas of Hungary and Marianne Vos of the Netherlands. With three kilometers to go, Faulkner didn’t hesitate to make a move. After crossing the Seine, she turned on the jets and shot off in a stunning display of speed that propelled her to victory.

“Zipped away” is perhaps the most accurate way to describe what happened. Kopecky, Vos and Vas were nowhere near Faulkner as she rounded the final turn. They weren’t even in sight. She crossed the finish line all alone, with no other competitors anywhere near her. Vos eventually finished second, Kopecky third and Vas just off the medal podium in fourth.

Only two members of Team USA hail from Alaska, and Faulkner, from the small town of Homer, is one of them. Originally a rower at Harvard, she moved to New York after graduating in 2016 to work in venture capital. She became interested in cycling after spending time biking around Central Park, and in 2017 she took an introductory cycling course. She fell in love with the sport immediately and moved to San Francisco in 2018 to take it more seriously. She turned pro just two years later, and in 2021 she quit her job to pursue cycling full-time.

Now, seven years after her first introductory course and just four years after turning professional, Faulkner has won the first women’s road race gold medal for USA Cycling in 40 years.