Kristen Faulkner Won America’s First Road Cycling Gold in 40 Years

Kristen Faulkner wasn’t even qualified to race the Olympic Games, but behind-the-scenes wrangling opened the door to start Sunday to deliver America’s first road racing gold medal in 40 years.

A decision weeks ago to replace triathlete Taylor Knibb with Faulkner on the two-rider U.S. team put her on the start line Sunday and set into motion the dynamics to win the gold medal.

In a spectacular race Sunday, Faulkner marked favorites and then pounced late to solo to America’s first gold medal since Connie Carpenter-Phinney and Alexi Grewal both won gold in road racing in Los Angeles 1984.

Knibb, who is racing in mixed triathlon late in this Olympic Games, didn’t race Sunday after giving up her spot to the eventual gold medalist.

“It was an easy decision to make. She’s never raced on the road before, and we talked about the pros and cons of it,” USA Cycling’s head of performance Jim Miller told Velo.

“They have a triathlon team relay the day after the road race, so I talked to their team, and I said if I was in your shoes, I would probably want her not to race this because you can win a medal in the triathlon relay.”

The triathlete punched her ticket for the Paris Olympics after beating Faulkner by 11 seconds in the U.S. national time trial race in May, which earned her a spot in both the road race and time trial in Paris.

While a solid performer on the cycling legs in triathlon, Knibb has no experience racing in the bunch, and everyone decided the best thing to do was to allow the more experienced Faulkner start the women’s race.

Knibb, who crashed three times during a wet and treacherous time trial race to open the Olympic Games, opted not to race the road race.

Everyone agreed, and Knibb offered up her spot to Faulkner.

The replacement was made even easier with Faulkner confirming her chops on the road with some big wins in 2024, not to mention that she was already part of the women’s team pursuit squad on the track.

“Taylor agreed, so it was a mutual decision and an easy conversation,” Miller said. “With Kristen, we know we have a very strong card to play in the road race.”

Faulkner, however, said she wasn’t convinced that she wanted to take the spot on the road race because she’s also a key member of the four-rider team pursuit team in track racing this week.

“I almost didn’t race the road race, and I had to ask myself if I would be capable of racing the road race and be ready for the team pursuit. We want to medal, that’s why we’re here,” Faulkner said.

She discussed it with her coaches and decided it was worth the risk, and she even simulated the 72-hour window from the road race to the team pursuit qualifying during her preparation for the Games.

“I decided I would only do the road race if I was confident I could medal,” she said. “I even decided if I was dropped I would pull out to prepare for team pursuit, and I would only continue in the race if I believed I could medal.”

That decision proved right on target, as Faulkner attacked up the first assault of the Montmartre climb Sunday to ride into the leading medal group.

She linked up with the leading duo with 4km to go, and didn’t even blink.

Faulkner then attacked while the others looked on, and she rode away with gold.