An early season win at Omloop van het Hageland. A stage win in the Vuelta España Femenina. National road racing champion. Two gold medals at the Paris Olympics. If, in 2019, you’d told Kristen Faulkner about the season she’d be having in 2024, she’d probably have scoffed.
Even as she crossed the finish line of the Olympic road race, a surprise victor in front of the Eiffel Tower, after riding with the strength and expertise of someone with three times her experience, Faulkner was in disbelief.
“I knew I won, I think it took me a little bit to be like, Is this real life? Am I dreaming? It was a lot of emotions,” she tells Cycling Weekly.
In the meantime, she just pedalled on. She did not punch the air in joy. She didn’t get off her bike to make some grand gesture. She barely even smiled. She just pedalled on, her thoughts already shifting to the Team Pursuit two days ahead.
“I finished the road race, and my first thought when I crossed the line was, I need to keep spinning, I have a race in two days,” Faulkner recalled. “I had talked about recovery with my team the day before the road race, because I knew that it would be a big component if I did the road race that I had to be ready [for the next race].”
A big “If” because Faulkner was never meant to race the road race. She was called up to put her powerful engine to use in the Team Pursuit, an event in which Team USA has medaled in every Olympics since 2012. But when triathlete Taylor Knibb withdrew from the event, committing only to the individual time trial outside of her triathlon duties, Faulkner was asked to fill in. Yet, her focus was squarely placed on the track event with instructions to be smart in the road race, conserve and, above all, recover in time for the track cycling event.
And so, instead of celebrating Team USA’s first road racing medal in 40 years, Faulkner thought about recovery.
“We actually made a plan for how I could be most recovered. Recovery shake, drink mix, rollers right away, ice bath – all that. So, yeah, I crossed [the finish] and I was like, I could stop, but I kind of need to spin the legs,” Faulkner said.
While the photographers at the finish line may have been left without the celebratory shot they hoped for, her focus paid off. Two days later, a second gold medal was hung from her neck. Even then, the celebration was brief. Two days of photoshoots and interviews and Faulkner was off again, travelling north to Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for the biggest race on the women’s calendar: the eight-day Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
On the eve before the start, Faulkner received a new kit—a golden ribbon added to the sleeves and collar of the red, white and blue EF–Oatly–Cannondale kit.
“I only have one [kit] so far, so we’re going to have to do a lot of laundry this week,” a giddy Faulkner told Cycling Weekly.
At the Tour, Faulkner is also riding a brand new Cannondale Lab71 race bike, complete with a tri-colour paint job and adorned with golden stars.
It’s been an absolute whirlwind for the 31-year-old Alaskan. And she admits it’s far from sunk in. Only after the Tour, she mused, would she truly have a chance to relax and let the enormity of her accomplishments sink in. But the initial feelings are of affirmation and validation.
“The biggest thing I’ve been thinking about is how big of a risk and sacrifice it took to leave my job and how scary it was. And how when I left my job so few people thought I could do anything with cycling,” Faulkner shared.
Faulkner was 24 when she swung a leg around a road bike for the first time, at a women’s cycling clinic in New York City’s Central Park. She turned pro with the now-defunct TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank women’s team three years later, in 2020, at age 27.
“I started late, I was new, I was moving across the world where I didn’t know anybody in Girona, I was making barely any money that first year and I think it just validated that I should trust my gut more often. When I left my job, the only thing I had was my gut instinct. I pursued something I was passionate about and it worked. I hope that message resonates with some more people.”
Her achievements have certainly ignited a media storm around her and her fellow American women cyclists. In Paris, the U.S. riders impressed, earning bronze in the women’s individual time trial, gold in the road race, gold in the women’s team pursuit, gold also in the women’s omnium and silver in the women’s cross-country mountain bike race.
“I hope it brings cycling back on the map for Americans,” commented Faulkner. “Cycling is not a very big sport in America. It hasn't been for a long time. I hope that we can parlay this into getting more people on bikes in America and more viewership for women’s cycling.”
Faulkner is currently racing in the Tour de France Femmes, where she hopes to go for stages where she hopes to go for stages if the opportunities arise and help her teammates.
"I enter [the Tour] with a lot of confidence in my form, my fitness and also my mental state," she commented. "I'm in a really, really good mood."
Follow along with our latest Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift coverage here.
