Qualifying for the Olympics in a single sport is tough sufficient, however a uncommon breed of athletes have been recognized to pursue two sports activities on the elite degree. One such athlete is Colorado-based triathlete and bike owner Taylor Knibb.
The 26-year-old returning Olympian turned the primary American athlete to qualify in two sports activities for the Paris 2024 Olympics when she received the 2024 USA Biking Time Trial Nationwide Championships in Might. The victory earned her a visit to Paris, the place she was already scheduled to compete in a triathlon.
She’s now received a busy schedule forward, with the Olympic time trial on July 27, the person triathlon on July 31 and the blended relay triathlon on August 5.
This offers her three possibilities to develop her trophy assortment, which already accommodates a silver Olympic medal from her half within the triathlon blended workforce relay on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Taylor Knibb and Brandon McNulty received the 2024 US Nationwide TT Championships
(Picture credit score: USA Biking)
Whereas nonetheless comparatively unknown within the biking world, Knibb is not any stranger to world-class competitors.
A star triathlete, Knibb is a two-time Ironman 70.3 world champion, an Olympic medalist, and a multi-time World Triathlon Championship Sequence medalist.
Knibb grew up within the triathlon world. Her mom, Leslie Knibb was an Ironman competitor, and Knibb herself began dabbling in triathlon at an early age and loved a stellar junior and U23 profession. She belongs to a choose membership of feminine triathletes who’ve received the Junior, U23 and Elite World Championships. In faculty, Knibb competed in Division 1 degree Monitor and Discipline and swimming for Cornell College. In 2017, on the age of 19, Knibb turned the youngest athlete ever to be chosen for the U.S. nationwide triathlon and once more took that honour when she certified for the Olympic workforce at Tokyo 2020.
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Seeking to take her expertise to new arenas, Knibb joined the Trek-Segafredo biking workforce(now Lidl-Trek) in 2023 as a method to ‘check herself on the highest degree {of professional} biking and study all concerning the methods I can proceed to enhance and develop.’
She made her professional biking debut on the 2023 U.S. Nationwide Highway Racing Championships, the place she completed fourth within the particular person time trial behind Chloe Dygert, Lauren Stephens and Amber Neben.
(Picture credit score: Getty Photographs)
Since then, Knibb has solely grown in each biking and triathlon. She has spent the final two seasons racking up a sequence of wins and podium finishes in each short-course and long-course triathlons. She is particularly dominant within the bike leg of a triathlon and sometimes out-bikes different formidable skilled feminine triathletes.
She is presently ranked first on this planet within the Skilled Triathlete Group rankings. In Paris, Knibb is favoured to win gold within the girls’s particular person triathlon and play a giant half in Workforce USA’s medal candidacy within the blended workforce relay.
On the biking facet, Knibb was initially additionally scheduled to compete within the Olympic highway race. Nevertheless, with a busy schedule as is, Knibb selected to bow out, and Kristen Faulkner was referred to as as much as take Knibb’s place.
Knibb’s first race takes place the morning after the opening ceremonies. Comply with alongside as she takes her likelihood to make historical past. See the Olympic biking schedules and streaming companies right here.
