31 year old Kristen Faulkner, a Harvard grad, and former venture capitalist at New York, won gold in the the Paris 2024 Olympics. Its an interesting story because she quit venture capitalist job to focus on cycling. And that she achieved this because she was in injured in a car accident that broke her shin bone. But she won the race.
It was interesting to note that in the race, the race favorites did not react to her attack with just 3 km to go. They just looked at each other when she pulled away.
There was a story that when she started biking in Europe, she even lost her contact lenses. However, when she was assigned to go with break away, she stuck with the job, and even forgot to eat because she was so focused on her assignment. She even went on to win the lap/stage
She just started biking in 2017 in New York so that she will be occupied, and to replace her PE with rowing (while at Harvard)
Her former sports was rowing. She was born and grew up in Homer Alaska contributing to her grit and determination
She said that she was able to use her venture capitalist background to calculate the risk benefits as she biked. One of the things we must be wary of is if we encounter riders like her who look very well deeply analyzing the data of every rider she may may meet on the road. They would definitely have an advantage.
I think riders now are better because they have better coaches, better science being employed to be better cyclists. Data driven
Congratulations Kristen.
Beating Europe's best. Beat by Team USA
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