Staff USA celebrates modern-era finest with 6 Medals in Paris

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Staff USA leaves Paris with a contemporary file of six medals within the Olympic Video games and large momentum going into Los Angeles 2028.

Jennifer Valente received gold Sunday to shut out the Paris Olympics on a excessive observe for the very best Olympic run in a non-boycott Olympic Video games for American biking.

“That is the head 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 funds cutbacks.

In reality, 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.

Staff USA roared into Paris intent on profitable medals and elevating the bar forward of the subsequent 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 crew previous the fashionable file of 5 complete medals earned at each Beijing 2008 and Rio de Janeiro 2016.

With three golds — in girls’s crew pursuit, girls’s omnium and ladies’s highway racing — Staff 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 — Staff USA additionally units a brand new file medal haul in the very best Olympic Video games efficiency in a non-boycott yr.

“It’s been a very lengthy week of racing,” Valente mentioned Sunday. “I raced (crew 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 file for Staff USA in a contemporary Video games got here in 1984 Los Angeles when Individuals received 9 biking medals. That was a boycott yr, when the Soviet bloc didn’t ship athletes to L.A., 4 years after the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Summer season Video games in Moscow over the Afghanistan struggle.

Three golds in Paris — Valente’s omnium and ladies’s crew pursuit in monitor racing coupled with Kristen Faulkner within the girls’s highway race — is probably the most Staff USA has received in biking since 1984, when the Individuals took 4 gold medals.

Pre-war Olympics noticed Individuals win biking medals in 1900, 1904, and 1912, and there was a U.S. medals drought all the way in which to the 1984 Video games, when a brand new technology of homegrown cyclists rode the biking increase to Olympic success.

Individuals have achieved nicely in monitor biking, time trialing, and BMX over the previous a number of Olympic Video games, however this yr 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 Individuals greater than 50 years in the past.

Paris additionally saved alive an necessary streak and helps carry momentum towards Los Angeles.

The large success in Paris implies that Staff USA has medaled in each Olympic Video games since 1984, with just one medal with bronze in girls’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. crew received 4 medals in London 2012, and 5 medals in 2008 Beijing and 2016 Rio de Janeiro.

Hopes are already excessive for a good higher efficiency in Los Angeles 2028, when the Individuals will probably be racing in entrance of dwelling crowds.

USA Biking will probably be pushing athlete growth and there ought to be a monetary windfall with the successes in Paris in addition to the hype going into a bunch Video games.

Lots 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 necessary 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 backwards and forwards throughout Sunday’s last day of competitors that additionally included weight lifting, girls’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 crew 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 had been from American biking.

Listed below are the necessary milestones from Paris:

• Faulkner rode to historical past profitable Staff 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 girls’s crew pursuit after a decade-plus push to win the four-rider self-discipline after it was added as a medal sport in London 2012. Staff 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 file for 3 straight golds in girls’s time trial from 2008-2016. When requested if she was enthusiastic about Los Angeles 2028, Valente joked Sunday she was extra frightened about making the closing ceremony.
• Dygert received additionally bronze medal in girls’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 girls’s crew 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 yr 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 girls’s Madison, the very best U.S. consequence for the reason that self-discipline was launched in Tokyo 2020.
• Brandon McNulty was fifth within the males’s time trial, the very best U.S. consequence since Taylor Phinney was fourth in London 2012.
• Riley Amos completed seventh within the males’s mountain bike race, the very 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 ways. 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 current Video games.
• Grant Koontz, the solely U.S. male certified for monitor biking, completed sixteenth within the males’s omnium, the very best by a U.S. male within the self-discipline.