“You can set a goal and accomplish anything you want”. It doesn’t matter your age; it doesn’t matter where you’re from.
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Win an unprecedented third straight gold medal in the women’s time trial.
“For all the moms out there, I hope this was an inspiring day”.
How could it be anything but? He’s old enough now to have gone to races with her, to have watched her strain and sweat and to have shared her joy.
Armstrong completed the grueling 29.7-kilometer (18.4-mile) course in 44:26.42. “When I went over for that hug he in my ear said, ‘Mama, why are you crying?’ And there was a pause, and he said, ‘Didn’t you win?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I did, ‘ and he said, ‘Then why are you crying?'” But he did ask me, ‘Momma, why are you crying? “And I am the best, ‘” he said. Because it’s what we do when we’re happy!
That overload of emotions was entirely understandable.
Armstrong, who previously won the time trial events at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, prevailed by 5.55 seconds over Russian Olga Zabelinskaya. That’s when her coach, Jim Miller, stepped in via radio.
“He said, ‘You’re in the medals”.
“In previous games that I’ve participated in, I would just get on plane within 24 hours and I’d be home”, Armstrong said. With that said, KBSX got an outside expert to assess her accomplishment.
Kristin Armstrong returned from a second retirement in 2015 to give it one last go for Rio Olympics. “That’s how I am”.
Armstrong retired after winning gold in the 2012 London Olympics but earlier this year decided to make a comeback.
This is a slide landing victory for Kristin Armstrong; this is her third consecutive victory in Olympics having won in Beijing and London before now. She described the flood of emotions as the news was confirmed. She made up the difference over the final, flat run to the finish, precisely the kind of terrain that suits her riding style perfectly.
To mark the occasion, she was given a birthday cake on TODAY and also received a special birthday wish from Olympic beach volleyball legend Kerri Walsh Jennings. And, they said, at 42 she was too old. However, Armstrong, who had been a controversial selection for the Olympic Games, stormed home to take her third gold medal, beating Zabelinskaya by five seconds and equalling Leontien van Moorsel’s record of three road gold medals. But she called this victory “the most gratifying”. I think that for so long we’ve been told you should be finished at a certain age. “I’m going to have to explain that one to him a little later”. It’s not a beauty contest out here today, ‘ ” she said.
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Zabelinskaya tested positive for the stimulant octopamine while riding in Costa Rica in 2014 but the Russian cycling federation cleared her – a decision challenged by world governing body UCI at CAS.
