‘Make it or not’

Roughly five months after winning a pair of gold medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and a day after a homecoming celebration in Homer, Olympic cyclist Kristen Faulkner appeared in Kenai to be recognized by local officials and continue celebrating her success.

Hosted by the Kenai and Soldotna Chambers of Commerce at the Cannery Lodge’s Hyde Out, Faulkner spoke to an audience filled with local dignitaries about her career, her experience at the Olympics, and her goals for the future. Then, she received a procession of accolades including lifetime memberships to both chambers and proclamations from the mayors of Kenai, Soldotna and the Kenai Peninsula Borough.

In a pair of proclamations read together by Kenai Mayor Brian Gabriel and Soldotna Mayor Paul Whitney, the two recognized Faulkner for her “remarkable cycling journey” as “the first American woman and third female Olympian in history to win gold medals in two different cycling disciplines in the same games.”

They proclaimed that day, Dec. 28, 2024, Kristen Faulkner Day in the two cities.

Faulkner was a first-time Olympian when she won her first gold medal in the cycling road race in Paris on Aug. 4. She finished the 98-mile race in 3 hours, 59 minutes and 23 seconds, becoming the first American to win the event in 40 years, since Alexi Grewal of Colorado in 1984.

She landed a second gold in the women’s team pursuit alongside three other teammates on Aug. 7.

“It all still feels a little surreal,” Faulkner said in Kenai this weekend. “Sometimes it sinks in and then I get really excited. Other times I have to pinch myself.”

Since winning in August, Faulkner said she’s been traveling the world, often speaking of her accomplishment. She first returned to Alaska on Dec. 20, appearing in Homer on Friday and Kenai on Saturday.

She also showed off her two medals — “some people want to see these more than they want to see me.” They’re gold plated, and each contains metal from the Eiffel Tower.

Cycling, she said, isn’t something she considered until after college. Now 32, she was 24 when she started cycling.

Growing up in Homer, she’d bike around town. She was a swimmer in high school and a rower in college at Harvard University. Missing the presence of a sports team in her life, she got involved with biking, first for fun and fitness, then competition.

“I went from local races to state races, to regional races, then eventually national level races,” she said. “After that, I went to Europe. It was very much a stair-step progression, but it happened pretty quickly.”

After starting to race in America in 2017, she began competing in Europe in 2020. She won a day of competition in her first race in Europe, and she said it was then that she saw a path to the Olympics.

In 2021, she quit her venture capital job in California and started competing with a team full time in Europe.

“I was basically all in,” she said. “I’m gonna either make it or not.”

By 2024, she had enough results to be selected for the United States cycling team, but she wasn’t initially selected to compete in the Olympics. It was another athlete who qualified ahead of Faulkner in the time trial — but not the road race — who was first set for Paris. Faulkner was selected for the road race and team pursuit after that cyclist’s resignation from the road race to focus on her time trial.

The road race, Faulkner said, is a long-distance endeavor that takes hours. Because she wasn’t initially qualified for the race, she was often overlooked when people considered the top contenders. But she was ranked among the fastest in the country.

“I knew that I was one of the better riders going into the race,” she said. “But no one had any expectations with me, because I was a backup and I initially didn’t qualify. I think when I went in I had a bit of confidence, but it’s the Olympics, right? You don’t go in thinking you’re going to win.”

Finishing in the top 10, she said, was feasible. She would have been “extremely happy” to reach the podium. A gold medal was a dream.

Faulkner finished roughly a minute — 58 seconds — ahead of both the second- and third-place cyclists from the Netherlands and Belgium. She said she actually didn’t know she was as far ahead as she was.

“Once I made my attack, I didn’t want to look behind me,” she said. “It wasn’t going to help me at that point. So I just put my head down and went to the finish line … I didn’t know if the girls were five seconds behind me, a second behind me, a minute behind me.”

The team pursuit is raced on a track with steep banks, up to a 30% incline. Faulkner said racers are going at speeds around 40 miles per hour, with wheels inches away from the other athletes. There are no brakes, no gears, and “a lot of attention to detail.” All four members of the team race at the same time, taking turns in the front position for 16 laps — around 2 and a half miles. Where the road race took Faulkner around four hours to complete, the team pursuit took Team USA only around four minutes.

Faulkner said she’s already looking to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, “a home Olympics.” On the way, she’d like to win one of the stages of the Tour de France and a World Championship. Someday, she’d like to build out more trails and a larger biking scene on the Kenai Peninsula.

“I got at least four more years of biking before I retire,” she said.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.