Olympic champion Faulkner didn't fall for Kopecky's trap: "I made her work for it anyway"

On Sunday, Kristen Faulkner surprisingly crowned herself Olympic champion in the road racing category in Paris. The American had incredibly strong legs in the final and broke away from Lotte Kopecky, Marianne Vos and Blanka Vas with three kilometers to go, eventually crossing the finish line solo with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

The woman from Alaska has a remarkable story: from the remote state, she ended up as a venture capitalist on Wall Street, where she made significant amounts of money. Nevertheless, she decided to change course and focus on cycling, a journey that would culminate in Paris a few years later. In front of her family, she reeled in the Olympic title.

"How does it feel? It's a dream come true," were Faulkner's first words after her race. "This is something I've been chasing for a long time, and now that dream is finally coming true: it's the best feeling I've ever had, I can't put it into words."

Faulkner, who is, to be clear, a very good cyclist, didn't immediately think she would win at the start. "I was hopeful," explained the woman who only found out definitively two weeks ago that she would ride the road race. "In two days, I'll be riding the team pursuit, and the deal was that I would take on the road race if I felt I could compete for a medal. And I did."

"It was a tough race, but I knew that if I participated, it wouldn't just be to participate. It was to race for the win," she continued her story. "I had the dedication and ambition, and I made that promise to my teammates in the team pursuit," said the woman who will also be competing on the track.

Faulkner didn't let Kopecky unsettle her

How did she manage it, knowing that she had to make a great effort to get to the front with Lotte Kopecky? "I knew that Kopecky also wanted to make the jump to the front, so she had to cooperate. A few times she showed that she didn't want to ride, but I made her work for it anyway. She wanted to win, that was clear. And that could only happen if we rode to the front."

In the absolute finale, they reached Vos and Vas. "I couldn't beat them in a sprint either, so I had to attack. The best moment was right after we came together because everyone was still tired. So that's when I went for it, knowing that I had practiced for this."

Remarkably, she literally crossed the finish line without celebrating. Why was that? "I was pretty sure I had won, but I was like: what the hell just happened? I couldn't let it sink in or realize it yet, I needed a few minutes for that. I knew I had won gold, but at the same time, I didn't," she says with a big smile.