U.S. cyclist Kristen Faulkner wins shocking gold medal in women’s road race

Kristen Faulkner wins the women’s road race at the 2024 Paris Games.
Tim de Waele/Getty Images

The women’s road race took place Sunday in Paris, one day after the men’s event saw Belgian Remco Evenepoel win gold in the men’s race. The women’s race featured a similar course to the men’s, but only a distance of 158 km (98 miles). On the 40th anniversary of the event’s addition to the Olympics, American cyclist Kristen Faulkner shocked everyone to win the women’s road race, with a time of 3:49:23.

Faulkner launched her move eary, after the riders passed over the River Seine. And no one could keep up down the stretch. It was a photo finish for the final two medals as London 2012 gold medalist, Marianne Vos (NED), edged out Lotte Kopecky of Belgium for the silver medal. Vos becomes the fifth woman to win multiple medals in the women’s road race.

Entering the Games, Faulkner wasn’t focused on the road race as she was initially added to the Olympics as part of the Americans track cycling team. She was only added to the road race less than a month before the Games began, after teammate Taylor Knibb dropped out to focus on the triathlon. The 31-year-old only began cycling in 2017.

After the race, Faulkner couldn’t put into words how it felt to win an Olympic gold medal, “I don’t know – you tell me what happened.”

This is a dream come true. I’m still looking at that finish line sign wondering how my name got there.

An hour into the race, individual attacks were the story. After the first of nine climbs, Slovakia’s Nora Jencusova took the lead. Afghanistan’s Yulduz Hashimi joined her around the hour mark and was followed shortly after by Israel’s Rotem Gafinovitz.

Afghan sisters Fariba and Yulduz made history when they started the race, becoming the first cyclists – male or female – to represent Afghanistan at the Olympics. Yulduz already competed in the women’s time trials earlier in the Games.

Back in the peloton, the main group of riders, the strong Netherlands team of Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes, Ellen van Dijk and Vos led the group while biding their time. Kopecky, the current world champion, also remained in the group. Kopecky won 11 races in the season leading up to the Olympics.

With 100km (62 miles) to go and headed into the second climb of the day, the lead group of Jencusova, Gafinovitz, and Yulduz, which at that point included sister Fariba, Vietnam’s Thi That Nguyen and Independent athlete Hanna Tserakh with a 5:18 lead over the main group — the largest lead of the day.

Halfway through the race, the peloton quickened the pace and started to chip away at the lead. Entering the final climb before the city circuit, where the bulk of the action occurred in the men’s race, van Dijk closed the gap to 3:36. By the time the race entered the city again, the lead was down to just two minutes.

The peloton caught Fariba and Tserakh, who had separated, as the group began the climb on the Cote de la Butte Montmartre. Disaster struck for American Chloe Dygert on the first turn of the climb when she crashed near the front of the main group. The crash, in the narrowest part of the road, caused a split in the large peloton group with many medal favorites caught in the carnage.

Dygert won the bronze medal in the women’s time trials earlier in the Games. She also suffered a nasty crash in the race and had to be helped off her bike. In the road race, she eventually hopped back on her bike, but at that point was well behind.

Faulkner managed to stay ahead of the crash. She executed an attack and took the lead in the race with Spain’s Mavi Garcia. Gold medal contenders Kopecky and Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini also emerged ahead of the crash.

Entering the final climb of the Montmartre, Vos and Hungary’s Blanka Vas separated from the main lead pack for a 30 second lead.

On the final climb, Faulkner and Kopecky executed an impressive climb to close the gap behind the lead pair to five seconds. With her parents in attendance, Faulkner left her competitors speechless as she surged ahead down the stretch, leaveing no room for pursuit, to secure the gold medal. She accomplished the feat on the 40th anniversary of the last (and only) American gold in this event, won by Connie Carpenter-Phinney at the 1984 Games.

Faulkner on her aggressive attack: “I knew I had to attack them as soon as we caught them. I knew they were sprinters. But I knew they didn’t want to work together – they were three different countries. I knew if I got a small gap they would have to race for second.”

After the move, she tried to keep her focus, “I just counted to 10 about 10 times until I hit the finish line.”

Dygert had an impressive push to get back in the race, but it was too little too late as she ran out of time and ultimately finished 15th.