Who is Kristen Faulkner? The story of the U.S. cyclist who won gold at the 2024 Olympics in Paris

The Olympic Games will always have room for surprises, and that was precisely what happened in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games women’s road race final on Sunday, August 5, when the American athlete Kristen Faulkner defied the odds and took the gold medal.

During the race, Faulkner showed a fantastic display and beat two of the best cyclists, Marianne Vos (Netherlands) and Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), who finished second and third. It seemed that the fight for gold was between Marianne Vos and Blanka Vas, but in a turn of events, with 3 km (1.8 miles) remaining, the North American cyclist caught up with the leaders and even left them behind.

With a time of 3:59:23, the American athlete established herself in the history of the Olympic Games and ended a more than 40-year drought for the United States in this sport. Connie Carpenter was the last athlete to win a medal for the U.S. in the women’s road race during the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles.

“I knew I’d won, but to be honest, emotionally, it was a bit surreal for me. I think, even though I came here with the confidence that I could earn a medal when I crossed the line, I didn’t fully take it in—it was just pretty overwhelming for me,” the gold medalist said after her outstanding victory.

When was Kristen Faulkner born?

Born in Homer, Alaska, in 1992, Kristen Faulkner is one of the two U.S. athletes born in this state at the Olympics; the other is the 33-year-old rugby player Alev Kelter, born in Eagle River.

She attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University in 2016, where she competed as a rower.

When were Kristen Faulkner’s first Olympic games?

Interestingly, Kristen Faulkner’s history with cycling is relatively new. Faulkner began cycling in New York in 2017 by riding around Central Park. She didn’t know it yet, but this was the first step on her path to winning the Olympic gold.

Faulkner’s love for cycling strengthened in 2020 while she was in San Francisco when she started racing for Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank. In 2024, she won the U.S. cycling road race championships in West Virginia, beating Ruth Edwards, a former national champion.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games were the first Olympics for the Alaskan athlete, but initially, she did not aim to participate in women’s road cycling. Faulkner was only going to participate in women’s track cycling. However, sports can unexpectedly open doors for athletes, and in this case, Taylor Knibb’s withdrawal from the road race just one month before the start of the Games left an empty spot; Faulkner filled that spot, and now the rest is history.