USA Cycling Told Kristen Faulkner She Had Just a 6% Chance to Win an Olympic Medal—She Defied the Odds

September 5, 2024

According to Faulkner, USA Cycling staff sat her down and showed her that their simulations gave her a six-percent chance of medaling in the road race. By contrast, the USA Cycling team-pursuit team was expected to medal on the track. Would she potentially sacrifice the track team’s chance of a gold medal for a six percent chance? She thought she could win. They did not.

The conversation and subsequent follow-ups plagued Faulkner in the weeks leading up to an already fraught road race. Since National Championships, she’d been on tenterhooks waiting to see if triathlete Taylor Knibb would relinquish her spot on the road race squad she qualified for by winning the time trial. (Faulkner won the road race handily, but the time trial was the USA-sanctioned qualifying event. Faulkner was second in that race to Knibb.) Bicycling