Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) is making her second appearance at the Tour de France Femmes as the Olympic Games road race and Team Pursuit champion, however, it isn’t her newly acquired gold bands and gold-detailed bike that she’s most thankful for, but simply being healthy at the start of cycling’s biggest race.
Her first appearance at the inaugural 2022 edition delivered a pre-race case of COVID-19 to dampen her preparations and three early crashes led to her only finishing in the top 25 of one stage. After a successful Giro d’Italia Women it became a Tour of survival for the Alaskan. Still, survive she did, all the way to the top of La Super Planche des Belles Filles, 26:02 down on 2022 race winner and stage victor on that day, Annemiek van Vleuten.
The rotten luck around the race continued, in fact becoming even worse in 2023, when after being hit by a car training in California Faulkner was forced to miss out on a second crack at the Tour. The 2024 race is a clean slate Faulkner welcomes with open arms.
“I’m just so excited to race this race healthy. I’ve never been able to and it’s the most iconic road race on the calendar,” Faulkner told Cyclingnews in Rotterdam ahead of the first foreign Grand Départ.
“I’m super excited for it, and to just be here and feel good and feel healthy is really all I’ve wanted since the Tour first came around.”
Faulkner, 31, will take to the start having had the most successful four-day run of her entire career, adding two Olympic gold medals from the road race and Team Pursuit at Paris 2024 to a palmarès that features national titles and stage wins at the Giro and La Vuelta Femenina.
Having trained very specifically for the efforts required for the 4km team pursuit, Faulkner is changing focus back to the road without any pressure to live up to her golden triumphs. But she will embrace any form she can muster up throughout the seven-day, eight-stage race.
“I’ve been focused a lot on my kind of sub-five-minute power – that’s what I did for the Team Pursuit and kind of for the road race. So I think the more kind of Ardennes and Classics-style course stages here on the Tour will suit me best,” Faulkner told reporters, with an eye on stage 4 to Liège.
“I haven’t done too many longer efforts, but we have some teammates who are really good at sprinting, who are really good in climbing, and I hope to support them in the stages where they can do really well.”
She confirmed there would be no GC bid for her but conceded that “if the climbing legs are there, they’re there, I’m not going to waste them. But I’m not expecting them to be what they were – my legs – for the Team Pursuit at the Olympics.”
Faulkner, who didn’t celebrate over the line in Paris after shocking a star-studded group of Marianne Vos (Netherlands), Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) and Blanka Vas (Hungary) to take gold, admitted that while she was aware she’d won, it felt almost like a dream.
“I said I would be happy to walk away from the Olympics with one medal of any colour. So to walk away with two golds is far beyond my expectations,” Faulkner said. When asked if it had sunk in yet she added: “No, definitely not.”
“I finished the road race, and my first thought when I crossed the line was, ‘I need to keep spinning, I have a race in two days’. So I was right back into race mode for Team Pursuit. And then as soon as that was over, it was media and focus on the Tour de France. So I think after the Tour de France Femmes I’ll be able to relax for the first time and really let it sink in.”
Faulkner even recalled the bizarre moment she rolled across the line on Pont d’Iéna with no arms up, but feeling amazed.
“I knew I won. But it was just so overwhelming. I think it took me a little bit to be like, ‘Is this real life? Am I dreaming, like, what’s happening?’ It was a lot of emotions at that moment,” the US rider said.
“It gives me a lot of confidence in my form and fitness right now. And I come into the Tour really excited, both for myself, but also for my teammates, because I think I can help them if they want to go for stages as well. I’m just feel really confident in the form and also my mental state, like I’m in a really good mood.”
No matter what happens next 2024 is already a massively successful year for Faulkner as she wears the stars and stripes jersey with pride on her gold-detailed bike. A Tour stage win would be the cherry atop the cake and it would be no surprise if the Olympic champion completes the Grand Tour set, given her flying form this summer.
