Alaska’s cycling legend Kristen Faulker, riding in the Team Pursuit event that is her signature competition, will come home from Paris with another medal. But will it be silver or gold?
The USA women’s team pushed out Great Britain Wednesday morning by just 0.2 seconds to be in contention for gold, and then will rest for a few hours before facing New Zealand.
Going into the final race for gold, the USA team’s time was slightly ahead of New Zealand’s — 5.865 vs. 5.819.
Check back with Must Read Alaska later this morning for the results of the final round.
Faulkner won the gold medal on Sunday in the road race in Paris, shocking the cycling world, as she had only been added to that race a couple of weeks prior to the Olympics, when another woman rider decided to drop out. Faulkner stayed with the pack for most of the four-hour race before breaking out at the end and arriving all alone at the finish line, with the rest of the riders not even in sight.
On the women’s pursuit team, Faulkner is, at 31, the oldest rider. She only started riding competitively in 2017, and left her job as a venture capitalist to dedicate herself to full-time bike racing.
At the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, the team of Megan Jastrab, Jennifer Valente, Chloe Dygert, and Emma White won the bronze in Team Pursuit.
This year, the team is made up of Jennifer Valente, Chloe Dygert, Lily Williams, Kristen Faulkner, and Olivia Cummins.
You go girl. You’re making a generation of female athletes proud.