'I almost didn't race' - How Kristen Faulkner's big risk paid off at the Paris Olympics

Kristen Faulkner’s life has long been about taking risks. A Harvard graduate, she first began a career in venture capital, tasked with picking the right companies to invest in. "They were quite high risk," she says, but she quickly learned to analyse them, calculate them, and figure out which ones were worth taking. 

On Sunday, in the road race at the Paris Olympics, Faulkner took one of the biggest risks of her young cycling career. 

With 3km to go, as she bridged across to a leading duo with Lotte Kopecky, she plotted to sail over the top. If the move paid off, she'd solo to Olympic gold. If it crashed and burned, she'd finish off the podium, the only rider from the quartet without a medal.

"If there's a high risk, and the reward is high, then it's worth it," she says. Fortunately, this one paid off. 

Faulkner's gold-medal-winning move startled Kopecky, Marianne Vos and Kata Blanka Vas behind her. They looked across at each other, and as they did, the American's advantage stretched out. In the end, she won by almost a minute. 

"This was a great example today. There was a lot of reward ratio I had to assess during the race. I had to be patient, I had to know when to be aggressive, be able to be patient in the right moments and pull back, and then know when to go all in," she says. "I think that's something I learned from my finance days."

Taking up cycling in the first place was a risk for Faulkner. It was only in 2017 that the now 31-year-old, a former collegiate rower, learned how to clip into pedals, and only in 2021 that she turned professional. "It's been quite a whirlwind," she says. "It's happened quite quickly. I think for my parents even, watching me on this journey. First I left my job, then I moved to Europe. Now I'm Olympic champion."

Getting onto the US cycling squad for the Paris Games was a risk, too. A year ago, with no track experience, Faulkner decided to try to qualify her place in the team pursuit squad. It ended up being fortunate she did. After losing out on the national time trial title, the Alaskan was not selected for one of the country's two road race spots, only gaining an entry because Taylor Knibb, the triathlete she lost out to, surrendered her place. As Faulkner was already part of the Olympic squad, she was allowed to fill in. 

Even then, she admitted, her focus was on the team pursuit. "I actually almost didn't race the road race," she says. "The reason is that I think we have a really strong team for the team pursuit. I think we're medal capable, and so I really had to ask myself, 'Am I medal capable in the road race as well?'" 

Then came another risk assessment. "I had to sit down with my coaches and assess could I really win a medal in the road race and what is the risk of that? And what is the risk of how it may or may not affect me for the team pursuit?" she explains. The decision was that she'd race both, and again, as she sat with a gold medal on the table in front of her, it was one that clearly paid off. 

There was, however, one risk Faulkner was not willing to take. In front of a sea of confused faces, the American charged across the line in Trocadéro, her head hunched over her handlebars, as if she wasn't aware she had won. "I knew I'd won," she quickly clarifies. "I kind of have two cardinal rules I live by when I race. The first is don't ever celebrate before the line. The second is, if you're in a solo attack, don't ever look back, unless you can kind of hear someone on your wheel. When I crossed the finish line, I said, 'Ok, now I can celebrate.'" 

And so, in the minutes after her victory, Faulkner stood with a US flag across her shoulders, smiling in the “surreal” moment. She then made her way to the podium ceremony to collect her prize. It was a high risk, high reward situation, and Faulkner, the ultimate calculator, had pulled it off again.