Cyclist Kristin Armstrong of the United States celebrates after crossing the finish line to win the women’s individual time trial event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Pontal beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 10. She covered the Rio route in 44 minutes, 26.42 seconds – with a bloody nose during the first third of the race – to top reigning bronze medalist Olga Zabelinskaya of Russian Federation by the slimmest of margins: 5.55 seconds.
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Four years ago in London she won bronze medals in both the time-trial and road race. “To hear the national anthem on the podium, that’s my favourite part of the Olympics”, added Armstrong, who was greeted at the finish with a hug from her five-year-old son Lucas.
“I believe it’s in your head”, said Armstrong, who will be 43 Thursday, the first day she will wake up as the first Olympic cyclist to win the same event three times, the first female Olympic cyclist to win gold medals at three Games, and the oldest female Olympic cycling champion.
Kristin Armstrong is heading into her 43rd birthday in style.
Ultimately, two Americans filed for arbitration to try to make the team.
“I took the latter and kept my mind positive”. It’s the fairy tale ending that her friends say only Kristin Armstrong could write. “Sometimes, I can overthink, I can read media and listen to it and get really stressed out about what somebody is or is not doing”.
But a month ago, Armstrong’s place on the four-woman USA team was in doubt in another sideshow common with subjective Olympic selections.
“It hurt a little bit, but with a good rest this afternoon think I’ll be fine”, he said. When Armstrong woke up at 4:30 a.m.to use the rest room, she went to the window and saw sheets of rain. 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.
Armstrong said she still does not know if winning a third gold represented “closure” for her stop-start career. “I thought about Mara (fourth in women’s road race), and I gave everything for her in the final 5km”.
“In the morning they told us we could participate”. Her son, Lucas, was born in 2010.
She warmly congratulated her American rival though and the greeting was returned despite some riders openly questioning why Zabelinskaya was racing, given the IOC’s pre-Games stance.
Cancellara finished the route in 1hr 12min 15.42sec, beating Dumoulin of the Netherlands by 47sec, with British star Froome, who also won bronze at the London Olympics in 2012, more than a minute behind. Neither retirement stuck. “As an athlete, we miss those goals”, said Armstrong, who lives in Boise, Idaho, and works at St. Luke’s Hospital as its director of community health. “The race didn’t go the way I wanted”.
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John Post, a sales and service associate at George’s Cycles in Downtown Boise, said the shop had an electric atmosphere Wednesday.
