Kristen Faulkner went against the USA Cycling to win the Olympic race in Paris: "They said I had a 6% chance for a medal"

American Kristen Faulkner won two of the biggest victories of her career at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Taking advantage of the off-season, the 32-year-old cyclist wanted to remember those who did not bet on her even in her own country.

Faulkner won Olympic gold in both the team pursuit and the elite women's road race. The latter was the bigger of the two, and at the same time the one they were least confident she could win.

"At first, USA Cycling didn't support me in the road race, even after I qualified, because they were worried about the team pursuit," Faulkner said in an interview with the Velo.

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The American relates that before competing for the medals she was asked not to ride the road race: "They took me into a room and said, 'We don't want you to do the road race.' I told them: 'Well, I think I can win a medal.' And they said, 'Well, we've done a drill, and our drill shows that you have a 6 percent chance of winning a medal of any color.'"

Faulkner's strategy

In order to convince her superiors to compete in the Olympic road race, Kristen Faulkner said she defended herself by claiming that the course suited her perfectly for a number of reasons. She was right.

"They asked me: 'well, how are you going to win?' I said: 'I'm going to attack from a small select group on the home straight leading into the finish.' And so, actually, the exact strategy I had when I told them that was exactly what happened in the race," the American concluded.

Faulkner took the gold medal crossing the finish line alone, after a 3-kilometer solo. She finished 58 seconds ahead of Marianne Vos, who took silver in a reduced sprint where Lotte Kopecky took bronze.

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