“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”>
Do not miss a second of the 2024 Tour de France! Get recaps, insights, and unique takes with Velo’s every day e-newsletter.
>”,”identify”:”in-content-cta”,”kind”:”hyperlink”}}”>Enroll immediately!.
Workforce USA leaves Paris with a contemporary document of six medals within the Olympic Video games and massive momentum going into Los Angeles 2028.
Jennifer Valente received gold Sunday to shut out the Paris Olympics on a excessive notice for one of the best Olympic run in a non-boycott Olympic Video games for American biking.
“That is the top of my profession, and of anybody’s profession, to win an Olympic gold medal,” Valente mentioned. “There’s nothing higher than this.”
That sentiment echoed throughout a rejuvenated and energized USA Biking group that was on its knees within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic 4 years in the past, one thing that ravaged membership contributions and compelled finances cutbacks.
In actual fact, USA Biking went to Tokyo 2020 with one quarter of its typical Olympic employees, and returned with solely three medals, its worst efficiency since Athens 2004 when USA received two medals.
Workforce USA roared into Paris intent on profitable medals and elevating the bar forward of the following Olympic Video games set for dwelling roads in 2028 in Los Angeles.
With medals in each biking self-discipline — in highway, monitor, mountain bike and BMX — USA Biking surpassed its pre-Video games purpose of “three to 4” medals.
Valente’s last gold medal Sunday pushed the workforce previous the fashionable document of 5 complete medals earned at each Beijing 2008 and Rio de Janeiro 2016.
With three golds — in ladies’s workforce pursuit, ladies’s omnium and girls’s highway racing — Workforce USA betters the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Video games with two gold medals, with Kristin Armstrong in time trial and Connor Fields in males’s BMX racing, as a part of 5 complete medals.
With six medals in Paris — all received by feminine cyclists — Workforce USA additionally units a brand new document medal haul in one of the best Olympic Video games efficiency in a non-boycott 12 months.
“It’s been a very lengthy week of racing,” Valente mentioned Sunday. “I raced (workforce pursuit) qualifying over every week in the past, and we had some actually good performances, so to tug it off on the final day, I’m actually excited.”
Jennifer Valente defends gold in Ladies’s Omnium on the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games!
Learn Extra: https://t.co/kLYzC4HPFL pic.twitter.com/GnC4fM95fx
— USA Biking (@usacycling) August 11, 2024
How good was Paris?
The all-time document for Workforce USA in a contemporary Video games got here in 1984 Los Angeles when People received 9 biking medals. That was a boycott 12 months, when the Soviet bloc didn’t ship athletes to L.A., 4 years after the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Summer time Video games in Moscow over the Afghanistan conflict.
Three golds in Paris — Valente’s omnium and girls’s workforce pursuit in monitor racing coupled with Kristen Faulkner within the ladies’s highway race — is essentially the most Workforce USA has received in biking since 1984, when the People took 4 gold medals.
Pre-war Olympics noticed People win biking medals in 1900, 1904, and 1912, and there was a U.S. medals drought all the best way to the 1984 Video games, when a brand new era of homegrown cyclists rode the biking growth to Olympic success.
People have carried out effectively in monitor biking, time trialing, and BMX over the previous a number of Olympic Video games, however this 12 months noticed breakout medals in highway racing and mountain biking.
Faulkner’s gold was the primary American Olympic medal in highway racing in 40 years, whereas Haley Batten received silver for America’s best-ever lead to mountain biking, a self-discipline invented by People greater than 50 years in the past.
Paris additionally saved alive an essential streak and helps carry momentum towards Los Angeles.
The large success in Paris signifies that Workforce USA has medaled in each Olympic Video games since 1984, with just one medal with bronze in ladies’s dash with Connie Paraskevin-Younger in Seoul 1988.
After two medals in every Olympic Video games in 1992, 2000, and 2004 — and three in Atlanta 1996 and Tokyo 2020 — the U.S. workforce received 4 medals in London 2012, and 5 medals in 2008 Beijing and 2016 Rio de Janeiro.
Hopes are already excessive for a fair higher efficiency in Los Angeles 2028, when the People will probably be racing in entrance of dwelling crowds.
USA Biking will probably be pushing athlete improvement and there must be a monetary windfall with the successes in Paris in addition to the hype going into a bunch Video games.
Most of the medalists in Paris will probably be again for one more shot at Olympic glory in Los Angeles.
Valente helps US end first on the medal’s desk
American biking additionally performed an essential function in serving to the U.S. finish the Paris Video games atop the medal desk Sunday.
The U.S. entered Sunday’s last day of competitors with 38 golds, one fewer than China’s 39. The battle went forwards and backwards throughout Sunday’s last day of competitors that additionally included weight lifting, ladies’s basketball and marathon.
China received a gold earlier within the day, and Valente’s gold Sunday afternoon helped the U.S. to tug inside one going into the ladies’s basketball last, the place the American workforce was extremely favored (and received).
Each the U.S. and China completed the Paris Video games with 40 gold medals, however the US was ranked first with extra complete medals throughout the Video games, with 126 to 91. Six of these have been from American biking.
Listed here are the essential milestones from Paris:
- Faulkner rode to historical past profitable Workforce USA’s first highway race medal in 40 years. With lower than 4 kilometers to go, she put in an enormous assault, and soloed to the win. Faulkner virtually didn’t race, with triathlete Taylor Knibb giving up her spot in a late-hour resolution.
- Faulkner, Chloé Dygert, Lily Williams, and Valente received gold in ladies’s workforce pursuit after a decade-plus push to win the four-rider self-discipline after it was added as a medal sport in London 2012. Workforce USA medaled in each earlier Olympic cycle, with silver in London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016, and bronze in Tokyo 2020.
- Valente defended her gold in omnium, with Kristin Armstrong holding the document for 3 straight golds in ladies’s time trial from 2008-2016. When requested if she was fascinated about Los Angeles 2028, Valente joked Sunday she was extra nervous about making the closing ceremony.
- Dygert received additionally bronze medal in ladies’s time trial to open the Video games regardless of crashing. Dygert fought again from a career-threatening crash on the 2020 world championships, and endured different diseases and accidents to win her first Olympic medal on the highway. She beforehand received silver and bronze on the monitor, and received gold within the ladies’s workforce pursuit in Paris.
- Haley Batten rode to a historic silver medal, marking the finest American end in Olympic historical past in mountain biking, following within the wheels of Georgia Gould’s bronze medal in 2012 and Susan DeMattei’s bronze in 1996.
- Perris Benegas received silver in BMX Freestyle, which made its debut in Tokyo. Benegas was a late qualifier for the Olympics this 12 months after tearing her labrum and bicep tendon after the Tokyo Olympics, then present process ACL, lateral, and medial meniscus surgical procedure in June 2023.
- Valente and Williams completed fourth in ladies’s Madison, one of the best U.S. consequence because the self-discipline was launched in Tokyo 2020.
- Brandon McNulty was fifth within the males’s time trial, one of the best U.S. consequence since Taylor Phinney was fourth in London 2012.
- Riley Amos completed seventh within the males’s mountain bike race, one of the best U.S. male lead to Olympic historical past. Christopher Blevins rode to a private Video games-best consequence with thirteenth.
- Matteo Jorgenson kicked to ninth within the males’s highway race in a efficiency that didn’t mirror his aggressive techniques. That top-10 is the newest by U.S. males within the Olympic highway race, with McNulty sixth in Tokyo 2020, and Phinney fourth in London 2012 in latest Video games.
- Grant Koontz, the solely U.S. male certified for monitor biking, completed sixteenth within the males’s omnium, one of the best by a U.S. male within the self-discipline.
