Another Olympics women's road race, another glorious surprise. Emerging from the packed Parisian streets to solo to finish beneath the Eiffel Tower was Kristen Faulkner, a rider few even had listed among the outside favourites. Even she herself only decided to participate at the eleventh hour, considering the road race as supplementary to her ambitions on the track. She certainly made the right choice, though – while the many Belgian fans massed in the French capital were left disappointed at their champion Lotte Kopecky’s failure to add Olympic gold to her glittering palmarès, and the similarly sizable Dutch contingent unable to cheer one of their star-studded line-up to victory, America can celebrate an unexpected gold medal.
Compared with every other major title in cycling, the Olympics road race is uniquely geared towards surprises and upsets. On the one hand, there are small teams, with no nation allowed to field more than four riders; riders used to deploying multiple teammates to exercise firm control while riding for their trade teams and keeping chancers in check can afford no such luxury here. Then, adding to the lack of control is the lack of any race radios. Riders simply don't have a full picture of what's happening in the race, so confusion can reign, and vital developments slip them by.
We saw how this could be the case three years ago when Austria’s Anna Kiesenhofer achieved one of the biggest upsets in cycling history to win Olympic gold in Tokyo. Having got up the road and remained there as the final survivor of the day’s break, she benefited handsomely from the lack of race radios as the chase group forgot about her presence. Though Annemiek van Vleuten celebrated as she crossed the line, little did she realise she was celebrating silver rather than gold, Kiesenhofer having reached the finish over a minute earlier.
It would, therefore, be easy to categorise Faulkner as another outsider victor capitalising on the particular quirks of this race, but that would be to downplay both what a savvy, strong performance she put in and her own ever-growing credentials. A late starter to the sport, having only turned pro in 2020 at the age of 27, she has, in that short time, made a name for herself with her climbing, time trailing, and long solo attacks. She’s had many memorable moments, notably her double Giro stage wins in 2022 and long solo attacks for third at last year’s Strade Bianche (before being disqualified for using a blood glucose monitor). But today’s title is, of course, the outstanding moment of her career.
Though the result is a shock, it is hardly the result of luck. First, Faulkner did well to be alert and strong enough to be part of the key selection of about a dozen riders when it formed early on during the first lap of the climactic Parisian circuit, while the likes of Dutch favourites Demi Vollering and Lorena Wiebes, plus the very in-form Kasia Niewiadoma missed out.
Having done so, it was brawn more than brains that saw her seal victory from this point on. She was still up against the much more fancied Lotte Kopecky, Marianne Vos and Elisa Longo Borghini in this select group, and so wasn't expected to still be in the mix with them after all the climbing was done. But when Kopecky made her big bid for glory the final time up the Montmartre hill to chase down Vos and Blanca Vas (who had managed to escape the group earlier), Faulkner was the only rider who could follow her wheel.
Having stuck with Kopecky to the top, Faulkner then worked with the Belgian to catch Vos and Vas with just under 4km to go, shortly after which she made her final, decisive bid for glory. This last attack was a matter of perfect timing more than anything else, the American choosing not to wait long to make her move and launching an attack 3km from the finish. Considering the superior sprint of both Kopecky and Vos, such a ploy was always going to be Faulkner’s best chance for gold from this group. Yet they failed to respond to it, allowing Faulkner to escape up the road and write herself into Olympic history.
Vos and Kopecky sealed silver and bronze, respectively, in the sprint behind, but both had looked at different points earlier like they were favourites for gold in what was an ever-fluctuating race. For a while it looked doubtful that Vos and her breakaway companion Vas would be brought back by the rest of the favourites, when they built up a big advantage working well with each, having gone clear about 21km from the finish, in between the second and third climbs of Montmartre. Only the combined work of Kopecky and Faulkner prevented them from contesting a two-up sprint for the medals, which fast-finisher Vos would have been a hot favourite.
Earlier, Kopecky had overcome a crash to work herself into a brilliant position. The main barrier between herself and gold had expected to be the gulf in quality between her Belgian team and the Dutch line-up, but both Wiebes and Vollering were short of their best and missed the selection. Kopecky also initially missed that selection due to her crash but used the first ascent of the Montmartre to jump clear of the peloton (Wiebes and Vollering among those left in her wake) and eventually bridge to the leaders.
She might have been the only Belgian in this lead group, but similarly, Vos was the only Dutchwoman, and Borghini the only Italian. In fact, the only nation with multiple representatives was, surprisingly, the Brits; but they lost their numerical advantage later when Lizzie Deignan and Anna Henderson were dropped, leaving Pfeiffer Georgi on her own. With no nation able to gang up on her in numbers, it seemed momentum was firmly in Kopecky’s favour.
Yet for all these encouraging situations for Vos and Kopecky, ultimately, both were outdone by Kristen Faulkner. The American proved the match of those two cycling legends and has an Olympic gold to prove it.
