American Kristin Armstrong won her second career Olympic gold medal on Wednesday in the individual time trial cycling event.
Kristin Armstrong, gold medalist
The victory by the 38-year-old Boise, Idaho, resident was made all the more remarkable by her recovery from a broken collarbone suffered during a similar event at the Exergy Tour prologue at the end of May.
Armstrong previously won the Olympic gold medal in the individual time trial in Beijing in 2008; she also has world champion time trial gold medals in her trophy case from 2009 and 2006.
Kristin Armstrong and son, Lucas
Meanwhile, Great Britain’s Bradley Wiggins, winner of this year’s Tour de France, won the men’s gold medal in the time trial.
American Taylor Phinney finished just out of medal contention in fourth place.
Women’s time trial
The current world champion, Judith Arndt of Germany, finished in second place on the 29km route, 15 seconds behind Armstrong’s time. Olga Zabelinskaya place third, for the bronze medal.
It has been a tough road back to the top step of the Olympic podium for Armstrong.
She stopped racing after the 2009 world championships because she wanted to start a family. She said in 2010: “I told myself from the beginning if everything went smoothly with the birth of our son, Lucas William, I would consider racing again.”
She did return to cycling with the Peanut Butter & Co. Team Twenty12 in 2011. She fell while racing in the prologue for the inaugural Exergy Tour in her hometown last May. Although she climbed back on the bike to finish the race, she later abandoned for treatment of a broken collarbone.
Men’s time trial
The men’s event followed the women’s on a slightly longer course at 44km. Germany’s Tony Martin finished with the silver medal, 42 seconds behind Wiggins. Christopher Froome, competing for Great Britain, finished in 3rd at 1:08 behind Wiggins. Froome is a teammate of Wiggins on Team SKY and finished 2nd in the Tour de France this year.
Wednesday’s victory marked the fourth Olympic gold medal for Wiggins, who formerly raced track. He holds a total seven career Olympic medals, making him Great Britain’s most successful Olympian.
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