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    • Kristen Faulkner makes Olympic history: The USA wins the team pursuit
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    Kristen Faulkner makes Olympic history: The USA wins the team pursuit

    Madoc Meredith Posted on

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    SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – Kristen Faulkner made history Wednesday in the final event of her first Olympic Games.

    Faulkner became the first American and third woman in Olympic history to win gold medals in multiple events at the same Olympic Games, helping the United States win its first gold medal in cycling in the team pursuit.

    The USA beat New Zealand in the gold medal heats by about 4/10 of a second. Great Britain beat Italy to take bronze.

    On Sunday, Faulkner became the first American woman in 40 years to win gold in the road race.

    Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel of the Netherlands (also in track and road cycling in 2000) and Esther Ledecká of the Czech Republic (in alpine skiing and snowboarding in 2018) are the only other women to win gold in more than one sport at the same Olympic Games.

    “I’m still pinching myself,” Faulkner said. “This still doesn’t feel real. … I think I’ll wake up in a week and it still won’t feel real, so it’s going to take a long time for me to grasp all of this, it really is. Originally my goal was to go to the Olympics, and then my goal was to bring home a medal, and now I’ve brought home two gold medals, so this is a lot more than I ever expected or even dreamed of. And I think we just have to keep dreaming of bigger and bigger things and hopefully there’s more to come, because the dreams don’t stop here.”

    Faulkner, a competitive rower in college, started cycling in 2017 and gave up her career in venture capital four years ago to pursue the sport full-time.

    She has limited track cycling experience, but rode Wednesday with a U.S. team that has long been among the best in the world in the team pursuit.

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    The United States has won a medal in the sport every year since it became an Olympic discipline, taking silver in 2012 and 2016 and bronze in 2020. Great Britain has also won a medal every year, while New Zealand, along with Canada and Germany, are the only other countries to win a medal in the sport at the Olympics.

    “I’m really happy with this medal, but I’m already looking forward to the next goal,” said Chloe Dygert. “I will cherish this, but it doesn’t stop here. I will keep going and achieve much more in the future.”

    Dygert, who took bronze in the road time trial last week, and Jennifer Valente were also part of the U.S. pursuit teams that won medals in 2016 and 2020, and U.S. cycling coach Gary Sutton called the fourth member of the team competing on Wednesday, Valente, “the best starter in the world.”

    “We decided to take a step back to help (Kristen) a little bit just get going (because of her inexperience on the track) and I think that was a good decision,” Sutton said. “But look, Jen Valente was leading from the front and Jen just has her timing down. She’s one of the – well, she’s not. She’s the best team chaser in the world along with Chloe and the others, but she has that instinct that if I tell her, ‘Run 22-second laps at the beginning,’ she’ll do it. And she’s ridden enough to know that. I think that helped Kristen and it was just a special night, but I think we could see it coming too.”

    The USA led New Zealand after the first lap and never relinquished the lead, finishing the race with a time of 4:04.306, less than 1/10th one second slower than the German world record (4:04.242) set at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

    Dygert shrugged his shoulders and narrowly missed the record.

    “I didn’t see a replay (of the finish),” she said. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but at the end of the day, a win is a win and that’s really all we wanted. Anything else would have been great, but the gold medal was our goal for today.”

    And she said she was thrilled to see Sutton retire with a gold medal.

    Sutton, 69 and a two-time Olympian as a racing driver, said Wednesday that he would retire from the sport after this season to return to his native Australia and spend more time with his family.

    “Gary is the best ever,” Dygert said. “What a great way to end his career. We have one more event with him though. He’s going to be at the world championships at the end of the season, so that’ll be his last big thing. But yeah, you could see it in his eyes, you could see it in his face, it meant a lot to him. He’s a special guy. We all love him and I’m as happy for us as I am for him. He’s just been so great for our program and we love him to death.”

    Contact Dave Birkett at [email protected]Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.

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    Madoc Meredith
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