Kristen Faulkner launches late solo attack to win 2024 Paris Olympic women’s cycling road race

A late addition to the US road cycling squad, former rower and 31-year-old Kristen Faulkner who only started cycling seriously in 2017, beat the odds and all pre-race favourites to become the Olympic champion in road cycling with a dominating performance that culminated in a solo attack for the ages, with the all-time great Marianne Vos from the Netherlands taking silver while the world champion from Belgium Lotte Kopecky just eked out Hungary’s Blanka Vas for bronze.

The course was similar to yesterday’s race in which Remco Evenepoel triumphed to become the first male cyclist to win gold in both road race and time trial, with the peloton today tackling 158km around Paris with 1,700m of climbing, most importantly, the cobbled climb of the Côte de la butte Montmartre three times before the flat finish along the Seine past the Quai d'Orsay and finishing on the Pont d’Iéna.

And much like yesterday, the race exploded to life once the riders made their way into Paris, but instead of everything happening on the scenic hill of Montmartre, it was a crash even before the first ascent that would shape the final 50km as the peloton went around the street circuit, with team USA's Chloe Dygert divebombing her Canyon-SRAM teammate from Switzerland Elise Chabbey and bringing a lot of riders down.

The crash meant that Lorena Wiebes and Demi Vollering, the pre-race favourite from the Netherlands, missed out on the front group, which had the likes of Italy's Elisa Longo Borghini, Belgium's Lotte Kopecky, the Netherland's Marianne Vos and all three of Great Britain's riders, Lizzie Deignan, Pfeiffer Georgi and silver medalist in time trial a week ago, Anna Henderson, who together controlled the pace with several attacks.

KRISTEN FAULKNER IS AN OLYMPIC CHAMPION! #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/htask3bzU2

— NBC Sports Cycling (@NBCSCycling) August 4, 2024

The group, however, failed to get organised with no rider willing to take turns at the front, with Spain’s Mavi Garcia and 2024 Giro d’Italia winner Longo Borghini getting in on the action with a couple of their own attacks to try and break free.

However, none of the attacks seemed to stick, until a Deignan attack which was only followed by the effervescent Hungarian national road champion, the 22-year-old Blanka Vas, accompanied by perhaps the greatest female cyclist of all-time, the 37-year-old Marriane Vos, who caught up to the British rider before dropping her and setting off down the technical descent.

It looked like the duo had done enough to secure at least a medal for themselves, but it was Kristen Faulkner from the USA who powered through the final ascent of the Montmartre, pulling the world champion Lotte Kopecky along after Georgi and Garcia failed to keep up, trailing Vas and Vos for the last 15km by just a couple of seconds like a stubborn shadow.

> Remco Evenepoel survives last minute bike-change scare to make history by winning Paris Olympics 2024 cycling road race

Kristen Faulkner crosses the finish line, 2024 Paris Olympic women's cycling road race (Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

But despite Faulkner pulling for most of the final kilometres, managed to break clear of everyone else with one last push, going solo and leaving Vas, Vos and Kopecky behind, the triumvirate looking at each other helplessly as the American lay the power down, growing the gap to 20, 30 and eventually 58 seconds by the time she crossed the finish line.

Behind, it was a sprint to the line for the final two medals, with Kopecky launching first on the finish straight but Vos coming over the top and beating the Belgian, who herself just managed to pip the young Hungarian in a photo finish worthy of being hung in the Louvre.

Marianne Vos beats Lotte Kopecky and Blanka Vos in the sprint finish to take silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympic (Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

Great Britain's Pfeiffer Georgi came home to finish fifth, meanwhile, Lizzie Deignan and Anna Henderson finished 12th and 13th respectively, just three seconds behind Lorena Wiebes who missed out on making it to the top 10.

But the day was all about Faulkner, who won two stages of the 2022 Giro Donne and was destined to become a rower until she started cycling seriously in 2017. The EF-Oatly-Cannondale rider, who sustained a fracture to her knee after being hit by a driver while training in California last year, was not even going to participate in the road race today till the last minute, choosing to focus on the team pursuit track cycling event in which she takes part next week.

> Kristen Faulkner’s Tour de France Femmes in doubt after being hit by motorist during training

Such was the jubilance for Faulkner that she didn't stop pedalling even after crossing the finish line, the American taking a moment to realise her achievement. She said: "I feel like it’s a dream come true. I took a really big risk a few years ago to come to pursue my dream and I made it happen. It's the best feeling in the world, I don't know how to describe it."

"I had high hopes. I’m racing team pursuit in two days and so I said I’d only do the road race if I felt strong and felt I had a chance of a medal. I knew that it would be a really tough race but if I was racing, I was racing to win. That was a promise I made to my team pursuit teammates.

"I knew that Kopecky wanted to catch the front two, so I knew she’d ride with me. I also knew that if we caught them, then I had to attack because I couldn’t beat any of them at the line. I knew the best place to attack was right after we caught them and everyone was tied. That was my chance. I practised my late attack several times this year, so I felt pretty comfortable with how to do it. I just hoped it worked."

"I was pretty sure I’d won but it was like ‘what in the world just happened?’ I couldn’t process it. It took me a few minutes. I had to double and triple check that I won gold. I knew it but I didn’t know it."

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