Kristen Faulkner’s Gold Medal Ride Was A Masterpiece Of Bravery

This year's Olympic road racing was a triumph at every level. The course wound through the outskirts of Paris long enough to soften up everyone's legs before arcing into the city for three laps around a technically and physically demanding loop, peaking at Montmartre and ending in front of the Eiffel Tower. Roads were kept narrow to accommodate the hordes of screaming fans, which in turn helped spur on gutsy, explosive racing.

If most Olympic events are geographically ambiguous, making one wonder what the argument is for moving the Games around other than ambitious real estate graft, the road race was a worthy riposte: something spectacular that could only have happened under these specific conditions. And the most spectacular moment of all came from the unlikely American winner of the women's road race, Kristen Faulkner.

Faulkner is 31 years old and has only been a professional for four seasons, the first of which she also spent working full-time as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. She rowed competitively in college and didn't take up bike racing at all until she started riding around Central Park for fun in 2017 and realized she kind of kicked ass at it. The Alaska native has put together some pretty impressive results, especially this year in her first season with the American EF team. Even so, she was added to the Olympic start list less than a month before the race, as a replacement for triathlete Taylor Knibb. Few took her seriously (though some did!) as a mega-strong contender to win a medal, on account of how stacked the field was.

The top of women's cycling is in a pretty great place right now, with a healthy crop of riders capable of putting down big-time performances now fully emerged to take over from Dutch all-timers Annemiek van Vleuten, who is retired, and Marianne Vos, who is 37. That ascendant pack is led by Lotte Kopecky of Belgium, a total one-day ace who's been the best rider in the world since probably 2022, though her dominance is not unrivaled. Especially not in an Olympic context: One thing that makes Olympic road racing so great is that the teams are tiny, with a maximum of four riders only for the most important cycling nations. That's not nearly enough for anyone to control the race, and it puts a ton of pressure on riders in interesting ways.

Absent a dominant force, anyone who wanted to win the road race had to go take it for themselves. There was no hiding. Every serious contender had to make moves, commit to chasing, and generally be bold. Men's winner Remco Evenepoel's Belgian teammates rode spectacularly for him, setting him up to make his move 38 kilometers out, though he had to patrol the sharp end of the race for a while and he alone had to make his move stick and shed people from his wheel. Also, riders aren't allowed to have radios, adding even more drama to Evenepoel's win ahead of his huge celebration. The women's race was even better. Everyone knew the Dutch women were the strongest, giving them the onus to chase.

After a flurry of attacks on the second Montmartre climb splintered the peloton, an incredibly select group of 12 riders survived. Great Britain had three in the group, and they inadvertently set up what looked to be the winning move when Lizzie Deignan and Anna Henderson attacked in service of Pfeiffer Georgi, only for her to slip off of Vos's wheel. Vos and Hungarian rider Blanka Vas powered away and quickly established a 30-second gap as everyone looked at Kopecky and waited for her to do the work. She didn't, and it was Faulkner who turned on the jets on the final climb, dragging Kopecky with her and finally making it worth the Belgian's while to put in a turn. The pair worked together to claw back the gap to Vos and Vas right after going through the Louvre courtyard.

With three flat kilometers left, Faulkner linked up with the best women's sprinter of all-time (Vos), the prohibitive gold medal favorite (Kopecky), and a hungry, 22-year-old crusher (Vas). All three would likely beat Faulkner in a sprint. It was at this point that Faulkner authored a moment of genius. The second the group coagulated, she attacked on the left-hand side of the road, committing herself completely to the move. Vas briefly followed, then looked around to see if either of her rivals would give her any help. As it stood, Vos and Kopecky were too concerned with each other to risk shredding their legs to reel back Faulkner. Kopecky got smoked by Vos at Omloop earlier this year and was clearly afraid of a repeat loss (which would, of course, come minutes later in the sprint for silver), while Vos seemed taxed from her efforts at making the move with Vas stick.

Had the quartet ridden for a little while together and gotten closer to the line, perhaps someone would have found the motivation to punish Faulkner. But no, she rode into the first medal for an American rider in 40 years by being the bravest rider on the road.

It was a fittingly great ending to a great weekend of racing, as fans packed into the city in such numbers that they turned the finishing circuit into an 18.4-kilometer-long arena. I've never heard a cycling crowd pop off like the Parisian streets did this past weekend, producing a roar with a rich, sustained timbre, one that echoed off the tall buildings and created an atmosphere of intense pressure.

"I live for this shit," wrote Matteo Jorgenson after a strong ride in the men's race. "Medal or no medal I experienced something very few will ever. We live such insular lives in the sport and sacrifice so much that on days like yesterday, when the entire city of Paris comes out to scream at you … it makes you feel things. Merci. I’ll never forget this Olympics." I don't think anyone who watched or raced in it will either, and it's so fitting that Kristen Faulkner delivered a most dramatic win for the frothing crowd.