Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) is making her second look on the Tour de France Femmes because the Olympic Video games highway race and Crew Pursuit champion, nonetheless, it isn’t her newly acquired gold bands and gold-detailed bike that she’s most grateful for, however merely being wholesome at first of biking’s largest race.
Her first look on the inaugural 2022 version delivered a pre-race case of COVID-19 to dampen her preparations and three early crashes led to her solely ending within the prime 25 of 1 stage. After a profitable Giro d’Italia Girls it turned a Tour of survival for the Alaskan. Nonetheless, survive she did, all the way in which to the highest of La Tremendous Planche des Belles Filles, 26:02 down on 2022 race winner and stage victor on that day, Annemiek van Vleuten.
The rotten luck across the race continued, actually turning into even worse in 2023, when after being hit by a automotive coaching in California Faulkner was pressured to overlook out on a second crack on the Tour. The 2024 race is a clear slate Faulkner welcomes with open arms.
“I am simply so excited to race this race wholesome. I’ve by no means been in a position to and it is probably the most iconic highway race on the calendar,” Faulkner advised Cyclingnews in Rotterdam forward of the primary international Grand Départ.
“I am tremendous excited for it, and to simply be right here and really feel good and really feel wholesome is de facto all I’ve needed because the Tour first got here round.”
Faulkner, 31, will take to the beginning having had probably the most profitable four-day run of her whole profession, including two Olympic gold medals from the highway race and Crew Pursuit at Paris 2024 to a palmarès that options nationwide titles and stage wins on the Giro and La Vuelta Femenina.
Having educated very particularly for the efforts required for the 4km crew pursuit, Faulkner is altering focus again to the highway with none stress to stay as much as her golden triumphs. However she’s going to embrace any type she will muster up all through the seven-day, eight-stage race.
“I have been targeted rather a lot on my form of sub-five-minute energy – that is what I did for the Crew Pursuit and form of for the highway race. So I believe the extra form of Ardennes and Classics-style course phases right here on the Tour will go well with me finest,” Faulkner advised reporters, with a watch on stage 4 to Liège.
“I have never performed too many longer efforts, however we’ve got some teammates who’re actually good at sprinting, who’re actually good in climbing, and I hope to assist them within the phases the place they’ll do rather well.”
She confirmed there could be no GC bid for her however conceded that “if the climbing legs are there, they’re there, I am not going to waste them. However I am not anticipating them to be what they have been – my legs – for the Crew Pursuit on the Olympics.”
Faulkner, who didn’t have fun over the road in Paris after stunning a star-studded group of Marianne Vos (Netherlands), Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) and Blanka Vas (Hungary) to take gold, admitted that whereas she was conscious she’d received, it felt virtually like a dream.
“I mentioned I’d be glad to stroll away from the Olympics with one medal of any color. So to stroll away with two golds is much past my expectations,” Faulkner mentioned. When requested if it had sunk in but she added: “No, positively not.”
“I completed the highway race, and my first thought once I crossed the road was, ‘I must preserve spinning, I’ve a race in two days’. So I used to be proper again into race mode for Crew Pursuit. After which as quickly as that was over, it was media and concentrate on the Tour de France. So I believe after the Tour de France Femmes I am going to be capable to loosen up for the primary time and actually let it sink in.”
Faulkner even recalled the weird second she rolled throughout the road on Pont d’Iéna with no arms up, however feeling amazed.
“I knew I received. Nevertheless it was simply so overwhelming. I believe it took me slightly bit to be like, ‘Is that this actual life? Am I dreaming, like, what’s occurring?’ It was quite a lot of feelings at that second,” the US rider mentioned.
“It offers me quite a lot of confidence in my type and health proper now. And I come into the Tour actually excited, each for myself, but additionally for my teammates, as a result of I believe I will help them in the event that they wish to go for phases as effectively. I am simply really feel actually assured within the type and in addition my psychological state, like I am in a very good temper.”
It doesn’t matter what occurs subsequent 2024 is already a massively profitable 12 months for Faulkner as she wears the celebrities and stripes jersey with pleasure on her gold-detailed bike. A Tour stage win could be the cherry atop the cake and it might be no shock if the Olympic champion completes the Grand Tour set, given her flying type this summer season.
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