Meet America’s investment banker who brought home gold at Paris Olympics

Kristen Faulkner brought home a Gold in road cycling after she was announced to participate in the games a month prior to Paris Olympics

Meet America’s investment banker who brought home gold at Paris Olympics

Kristen Faulkner of USA at the Paris Olympics (image via Instagram)

Kristen Faulkner became the first woman to top the podium in the event since 1984. With that, Team USA won their first medal in women’s cycling at the Paris Olympics in 40 years since Connie Carpenter-Phinney. Faulkner pulled this off with just seven years of background in road cycling that she gained while she was an Investment Banker in New York.

Kristen Faulkner did not just win. She broke the time record in splendid fashion. Faulkner finished with a time of 3:59:23, which was 0:58 ahead of second place. She will now compete in the Team Pursuit competitions on 6th August, followed by the finals the following day. As such, more medals could be on her way.

YouTube video

Faulkner’s path to the Paris Olympics was nothing short of a dramatic Hollywood movie. She qualified to compete in the Paris Olympics in track cycling and not road cycling. However, on July 9th, a month before the race, it was announced that Faulkner would take Taylor Knibb’s spot in Team USA as she decided to focus on the time trial and triathlon events in Paris.

FS Video

Kristen Faulkner started road cycling only as an outdoor fix when she moved to New York. In just a year, Faulkner moved to San Francisco to train full-time with Team Tibco Silicon Valley Bank. Time moved at a different pace for Faulkner as she quit her job in 2020 and started racing professionally after she won her first pro race.

RELATED
Novak Djokovic hails Paris Olympics gold victory as the ‘biggest sporting success’ in his career
Novak Djokovic

Kristen Faulkner speaks of winning the gold medal

It wasn’t easy to fathom that Kristen Faulkner didn’t even know how to lock her cleats into the pedals at first. However, once she figured it out, she did not stop. Faulkner revealed in an interview that she needed that outdoor fix when she was in New York. Faulkner believed in her despite people telling her otherwise. 

I want to win a medal at the Olympics. I want to win a world championship in the time trial. And I would like to win a stage at the Tour de France. I have some big goals, don’t I?
Kristen Faulkner in an interview with Olympics.com

Her journey to the Olympics included resilience and overcoming injury and accidents. In an interview before the Olympics, she revealed that she had learned discipline and how to manage pressure from Harvard. She felt that there was a lot of pressure to perform at this level of elite sports.

In case you missed it: