Kristin Armstrong
Kristin Armstrong
Kristin Armstrongis a professional road bicycle racer and two-time Olympic gold medalist, the winner of the women's individual time trial in 2008 and 2012. Before temporarily retiring to start a family in 2009, she rode for Cervélo TestTeam in women's elite professional events on the National Racing Calendarand UCI Women's World Cup. She announced a return to competitive cycling beginning in the 2011 season, competing for Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12 at the Redlands Classic...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCyclist
Date of Birth11 August 1973
CountryUnited States of America
Real connection and intimacy is like a meal, not a sugar fix.
I think the other thing that's interesting about the women's peloton is that if you ask what their background is most have played college sports, and a lot of times have come off of injury and have gotten on a bike. A lot of us start post college in our mid 20's unlike in Europe where they start 10 years before that.
I had to quit triathlons, I continued to be active and worked in advertising agency .
Cycling is not impactful. Its just like when you are injured, have a knee surgery or something, there are so many things that you can still do, you just have to find that other passion that's out there.
I would love to end my European campaign with the World Championship stripes on my back. But everything else that I have in my mind right now is to continue working with and having my little camps for women cyclists.
When I was a runner and competing in triathlons I was having pains in my hip and just treating it as an injury. I would ice it and take anti-inflammatories, but it just wouldn't go away. I finally went into my doctor and we did x-rays and had an MRI and diagnosed it as osteoarthritis. At that point I stopped doing anything that was impactful to my hip joints.
Because cycling is a repetitive front to back motion you never go side to side with your legs, the muscles and joints are really going to protect themselves when you have arthritis. So continually working on opening things up helps to alleviate pain.
It was a long time in the hot seat and I was hopeful that I might hold on,
I think once an athlete always an athlete and once you have a competitive nature about you, in general, it's hard to let go. Whether you're going to take it into medicine or take it into sport, the competitive drive never really leaves.
I think USA Cycling really needs to ride this wave and start looking at growing the sport. It's a tough one because cycling is such an endurance sport.
US Cycling is doing a lot now with camps in different towns or different regions, but I think a great place, and I'm not sure how much it's been hit, is camps for people that are involved in other sports. Why not put on camps for high school kids that are cross-country runners, because those are the some of the best cyclists.
In high school you just kind of go with it, you belong to a sport and you're lettering and there is a very social part. With cycling, a lot of people will steer away because you can't letter, and lettering is still cool and it's very important for scholarships and other stuff.
What I have learned about the sport of cycling is that you have to love it to do it because you're not going to retire off of it.
To be honest, if I had to pick somebody to be related to in sport, who's better than Lance Armstrong with what he's done for the sport and with his cancer foundation?