Four years before the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles, American Kristen Faulkner won the road race this Sunday, August 4. She beat Dutchwoman Mariane Vos and Belgian Lotte Kopecky. With the men’s race the day before, Paris will have experienced two unforgettable days of cycling, the public largely responded.
4 mins
American Kristen Faulkner became the Olympic road cycling champion with a solo victory at Trocadero. The 31-year-old Alaska native became the first American woman to win the Olympic road race since Connie Carpenter in 1984 when the event made its debut at the Games.
During these two days of road cycling, an incredible fervor took hold of the capital as the riders passed by. A real postcard of Paris on mondovision.
” We can’t do this again, technically it’s too complicated. In any case, it would be a pale copy, we must keep the memory of this extraordinary moment “, explains Marc Madiot, director of the French cycling team Groupama-FDJ.
Montmartre hill, one of the emblematic places of Paris 2024
For two days with the men’s race and the women’s race, the Butte Montmartre became one of the emblematic places of Paris 2024. The famous Rue Lepic and its cobblestones, which connects the Moulin Rouge to the Place du Tertre, so popular with tourists the rest of the year, was transformed for the occasion into a sort of bend worthy of a major Tour de France pass.
“ This climb up Montmartre was crazy “, said Frenchman Kevin Vauquelin after the finish, he who finished the men’s race in 34th place. It was an incredible day. All those people gathered in Paris, it reminded me of the Tour of Flanders. Climbing Montmartre was like climbing the Kwaremont (the legendary difficulty of the Belgian Monument),” said German Nils Politt, second in Paris-Roubaix in 2019.
Aside from the final stage of the Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées, the French capital has not hosted a cycling race for quite some time. There is only one event left for amateurs in the 14th arrondissement: a race organized by Paris Cycliste Olympique (PCO) at the foot of the Montparnasse Tower.
There was a time when Parisians were invited to go and see hill climbs, the Tour des Maréchaux and even a cyclo-cross around Montmartre! A bygone era, which will never return, even if the inhabitants of the capital can now enjoy several hundred kilometers of cycle paths and the little queen is fashionable. Used by the Parisian proletariat of the interwar period, the bicycle is now an important means of transport in Paris. Now, all social classes use it.
During the men’s race, around 500,000 people gathered along the 270-kilometre course, according to Paris city hall and the organisers. But there was no official count carried out by the police headquarters. Ugandan Charles Kagimu, who led the way for a long time before the big guns decided to take matters into their own hands, remembers a ” extraordinary moment “.
Memories that will remain engraved for life
” In Montmartre, the noise was something difficult to describe. We were almost happy to arrive on the descent where it was quieter, said Frenchman Christophe Laporte after the finish, bronze medal around his neck. These are memories that will remain engraved for life.. »
Among the women, Awa Bamogo will also remember her day on her bike for a long time. She was simply in the lead of the race for the first ten kilometers, just to enjoy all by herself the applause and cheers in the Latin Quarter, located on the left bank of the Seine in Paris. During the three passages on rue Lepic, the women were cheered like the men by an incredible crowd.
These two Olympic races will certainly remain in everyone’s memories and in the sports history books.