USA time trials champion Carmen Small had called for an arbitration hearing after being left off the team. In Kristin Armstrong’s case, it should be called the race of the mind, where the most strong-willed win. She had ― with a time of 44:26.42, Armstrong had beaten her closest competitor by six seconds and become the first American woman to claim gold three times in the same event. Armstrong is the oldest female cycling medalist of all time.
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Armstrong, one day shy of her 43rd birthday, joined speedskater Bonnie Blair as the only American women to win three gold medals in the same event at any Olympics.
Zabalinskaya said “I’m very happy, but of course, I am also disappointed that I could not win the gold medal”.
The U.S. women cycled well in the road race Sunday, only to see Mara Abbott get passed less than 200 meters from the end and finish fourth.
“I don’t have words to describe it”, she told the Associated Press. “He had little help from referee, so it’s good for me”, – Fares Ferjani did away with humility despite losing 15-11 to four-time Olympic medallist Aldo Montano in the men’s individual sabre table of 32 clash. Sunday’s road race victor Anna van der Breggen of the Netherlands captured bronze, 11.38 seconds off the pace. The descend of the Vista Chinesa, where Van Vleuten crashed, wasn’t in the time trial, but the descends in the Grumari circuit were tricky too, especially with the weather conditions and the fact everyone was riding a time trial bike.
For Kristin Armstrong, the Road to Rio gold isn’t one she traveled alone.
“Oh yeah, we were up at 0-dark-thirty getting dialed in and ready to watch the whole thing”, George’s Cycles co-owner Mike Cooley said. “And I said, that’s a great question from a 5-year-old”. “Why am I crying? Why is it that we cry when we’re overwhelmed with happiness and joy?”
Armstrong has tried to leave cycling before – twice, actually – but the allure of new challenges kept bringing her back. As if that time itself wasn’t fantastic enough, it absolutely dwarfed his competition as the Swiss cyclist won the gold medal by nearly a minute. She’s also the director of community health at a hospital, and wants to spend more time doing the kind of outreach that truly drives her these days. And she focused on raising Lucas. After giving birth to Lucas, she returned to the sport and won gold in London.
“You can get really stressed out around what somebody is or is not doing so I just try to eliminate those thoughts”.
“To leave the sport at the end of this season with the gold medal is just a flawless way to end my career”.
So when Armstrong, the last of the field to tackle the 29.7-kilometer course on a wild and wet day next to the Atlantic breakers, crossed the finish line five seconds quicker than Zabelinskaya had managed it felt fitting in so many ways.
Armstrong trained hard all winter, then finished third at the national time trial championship in May and was named to the Rio team in June.
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So she set a new goal, of making it back to the national championships past year. “And this morning, on my podium bag, there was another one”. “I honestly was hurt by what people I know and people in the sport were saying”. “I feel this was the tightest team I’ve been on”. “I haven’t experienced this in all of my years”.
