Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) is making her second look on the Tour de France Femmes because the Olympic Video games highway race and Group Pursuit champion, nevertheless, it isn’t her newly acquired gold bands and gold-detailed bike that she’s most grateful for, however merely being wholesome in the beginning of biking’s greatest 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 high 25 of 1 stage. After a profitable Giro d’Italia Girls it grew to become a Tour of survival for the Alaskan. Nonetheless, survive she did, all the best way 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, the truth is changing into even worse in 2023, when after being hit by a automotive coaching in California Faulkner was compelled 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 capable of and it is essentially the most iconic highway race on the calendar,” Faulkner instructed Cyclingnews in Rotterdam forward of the primary overseas Grand Départ.
“I am tremendous excited for it, and to simply be right here and really feel good and really feel wholesome is absolutely all I’ve wished because the Tour first got here round.”
Faulkner, 31, will take to the beginning having had essentially the most profitable four-day run of her complete profession, including two Olympic gold medals from the highway race and Group Pursuit at Paris 2024 to a palmarès that options nationwide titles and stage wins on the Giro and La Vuelta Femenina.
Having skilled 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 kind she will be able to 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 Group 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 instructed reporters, with an eye fixed 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 very well.”
She confirmed there can 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 Group Pursuit on the Olympics.”
Faulkner, who didn’t have fun over the road in Paris after surprising 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 nearly like a dream.
“I mentioned I’d be completely happy to stroll away from the Olympics with one medal of any color. So to stroll away with two golds is way 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 have to maintain spinning, I’ve a race in two days’. So I used to be proper again into race mode for Group Pursuit. After which as quickly as that was over, it was media and deal with the Tour de France. So I believe after the Tour de France Femmes I will be capable of calm down 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. However 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 taking place?’ It was lots of feelings at that second,” the US rider mentioned.
“It offers me lots of confidence in my kind 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 might help them in the event that they wish to go for phases as effectively. I am simply really feel actually assured within the kind and likewise my psychological state, like I am in a extremely good temper.”
It doesn’t matter what occurs subsequent 2024 is already a massively profitable yr for Faulkner as she wears the celebs and stripes jersey with satisfaction on her gold-detailed bike. A Tour stage win can be the cherry atop the cake and it could be no shock if the Olympic champion completes the Grand Tour set, given her flying kind this summer season.
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