EF Training-Cannondale’sKristen Faulkner is firing on all cylinders thus far this season, with robust performances within the Spring Classics and at La Vuelta España Femenina adopted by netting a silver time trial medal and the stars-and-stripes jersey at 2024 U.S. Nationwide Highway Race Championships.
Her profession as an expert bicycle owner continues to be younger however Faulkner is shortly making a reputation for herself with stage wins at Tour Féminin de l’Ardèche, the Girls Tour of Norway, the Tour de Suisse and the Giro Donne. All the time robust within the race in opposition to the clock, Faulkner was the 2023 Pan American time trial champion, and completed sixth on the 2022 World Championships.
Regardless of Faulkner’s spectacular rise within the sport, turning into a professional bicycle owner wasn’t even on Faulkner’s radar till round 2020. In actual fact, she didn’t even trip bikes for something aside from occasional leisure actions till 2016.
Get to know your new U.S. nationwide street race champion under.
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
1. Faulkner is Alaskan born and raised
Faulkner grew up in Homer, Alaska, a small fishing city that is named the Halibut Capital of the World. She labored in her mother and father’ restaurant and resort alongside her 4 siblings to “study the worth of laborious work,” in her phrases.
2. Faulkner is a Harvard grad
Faulkner went to highschool on the Phillips Academy in Massachusetts the place she was an honors scholar after which attended college at Harvard, the place she studied pc science.
3. Faulkner was a collegiate rower
Faulkner was all the time an lively and aggressive child, however biking was not on her radar till her twenties. As a substitute, Faulkner was a aggressive rower. She positioned second on the Junior World Rowing Championship in 2010 and rowed collegiately for Harvard and. Moreover, in highschool, Faulkner was a multi-varsity sport athlete in working, swimming and rowing.
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4. Faulkner is a enterprise capitalist
Faulkner began her post-college profession as an funding affiliate at Threshold Ventures, an early-stage enterprise capital agency in Silicon Valley, California. Based on Faulkner’s web site, she “beloved [her] job as a result of [she] was supporting entrepreneurs who had been risking the whole lot to pursue their huge goals.”
Right now, Faulkner is an investor who focuses on gender equality and supporting girls in know-how, entrepreneurship and investing. She has beforehand hosted free workplace hours for feminine entrepreneurs and held management roles for All Elevate, a neighborhood of feminine enterprise capitalists.
Kristen Faulkner (BikeExchange-Jayco) celebrates sporting the maglia rosa after successful the opening stage of the 2022 Giro Donne
(Picture credit score: Dario Belingheri/Getty)
5. Faulkner didn’t even trip a street bike till 2016
Though Faulkner knew the fundamentals of the right way to trip a motorbike, it wasn’t till she attended a free introductory “study to trip” class for ladies in New York Metropolis in 2016 that she fell in love with street driving.
After transferring to the San Francisco Bay Space in 2018, Faulkner continued to hone her driving expertise and health, and in 2020 she started racing professionally for the now-defunct TIBCO-Silicon Valley Financial institution girls’s workforce.
6. Faulkner has made 3 World Championship appearances (thus far)
Faulkner has represented the U.S. at three biking World Championships so far:
– The 2020 E-Sports activities World Championships, the place she completed nineteenth place
– The 2021 Highway World Championships, the place she completed in 52nd place
– The 2022 Highway World Championships the place she completed 61st within the street race and sixth within the time trial.
7. Faulkner was DQ’d eventually yr’s Strade Bianchi
Faulkner was DQ’d eventually yr’s Strade Bianche for sporting a steady glucose monitor (CGM) in competitors, which is banned by the UCI. This value Faulkner a podium spot – she would have completed in third. Faulkner later launched an announcement saying she was “very dissatisfied” within the DQ choice.
Faulkner completed sixth general at this yr’s Strade Bianchi.
8. She is a rising star and one to observe
The 32-year-old has huge goals, together with Olympic ambitions for Paris. She is at present the third-highest-ranked American (forty seventh) but when she continues to carry out the way in which she has been, it’s possible we’ll see her end out the yr a lot greater than that. She’s definitely one to observe.
