With the Eiffel Tower behind her and the finish line ahead, Kristen Faulkner didn’t seem to realize she was on her way to winning the Olympic road race.
The 31-year-old broke away from the lead pack with 3km to go of the 158km course and immediately went into tunnel vision mode: She took one look, realised a gap had opened up and sprinted strong towards the finish line.
There was no one to celebrate when she crossed the finish line. So did she know she had won? Yes, but the emotional impact of the moment was too overwhelming.
“I was pretty sure I’d won, but to be honest with you, it was like, ‘What just happened?’ I couldn’t comprehend it,” Faulkner told Eurosport after his win. “It was so big for me to realise it had actually happened, I had to take a few minutes and check and recheck: ‘Did I just get gold? Did I just get gold?’ I knew it, but I didn’t know.”
Faulkner became the first U.S. Olympic road race champion in 40 years since Connie Carpenter topped the podium in her event debut, but she wasn’t one of the clear favorites before the race and, despite some good results this season, she was still a dark horse for the medal.
But Forkner went into the race with a different mindset: either go big or don’t go at all.
“I knew it was going to be a really tough race, but if I was going to race, I was going to run to win,” she said. “I wasn’t going to run just to participate, so I had to go into the race with that ambition and I wasn’t going to race if I wasn’t aiming for a medal.”
Forkner, who was scheduled to take part in the team pursuit on the track, was not originally on the start list for the Olympic road race. U.S. time trial champion Taylor Knibb was selected to fill one of two open spots, with Olympic time trial bronze medalist Chloe Dygert the other, but Knibb decided to withdraw, clearing the way for the championship contender.
Meanwhile, Dygert helped Forkner to victory. With less than 50 kilometers to go, Dygert was involved in a crash that broke up the pack and caused chaos throughout the race. Forkner escaped her teammate’s crash unscathed and eventually joined a strong group behind race leaders Marianne Voss (Netherlands) and Blanka Was (Hungary).
With 10km to go, Faulkner and reigning world champion Lotte Kopecky made a move up the Montmartre hill to try to make up for the 30-second gap they had on Voss and Vasse. It took them 7km to get there, but they did.
But the leading quartet couldn’t stay together for long. Shortly after the two groups made contact, Faulkner delivered a heavy blow, forcing Vás to chase her. The race was effectively over when the Hungarian left the course to be joined by the more experienced Voss and Kopecky. As the three began to neutralise each other, Faulkner rode off into the sunset.
“Once I got caught, I had to attack because you’re not going to beat anybody at the finish line,” Forkner said later about his race-winning move. “I knew the best place to attack was right after I caught up, when everyone was a little tired. That was my chance. I’ve practiced late attacks a lot this year, so I was pretty confident in how I was going to do it. I practiced it a lot. I just hoped it would work.”
It worked, and judging by her reaction afterwards, she not only surprised her rivals with the ferocity of her attack, but herself too.
