Jennifer Valente and Chloe Dygert are going to be busy during the Paris Olympics next month.
The two American cyclists are key members of the track team USA Bicycling announced Thursday for the Summer Olympics, and each will compete in multiple events: Valente will seek to defend his title in the omnium and also compete in the Madison and team pursuit, while Dygert will join Valente on the pursuit team and also compete in the road race and time trial.
“I'm excited to have been officially selected to my third Olympic team,” said Valente, who has won the past two World Omnium Championships following his Olympic victory. “The journey to Paris has been a unique process, with new challenges in the shortened quad event, and I'm excited to compete alongside my long-time teammates and new faces.”
Lily Williams will partner Valente in Madison and will also join the pursuit team, which includes the three returning riders from the bronze medal-winning team in Tokyo, as well as Kristen Faulkner and Olivia Cummins.
Grant Koontz has been selected to represent the United States in the omnium and will be the only men's event.
“The Olympics has been a lifelong dream of mine and I am so grateful to have been selected for the national team,” he said. “I still can't believe I'll be a part of the U.S. national team in Paris this summer.”
Valente's selection to the Paris team was an obvious choice; few athletes in the history of American track cycling have been as accomplished as her. The 29-year-old San Diego native will be competing in her third Olympic Games and is widely considered the favorite to win the omnium, which brought the U.S. its first Olympic title three years ago.
The two-day omnium, which will be held in conjunction with the rest of the Olympic track events at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome outside Paris, will consist of scratch, tempo, elimination and points races.
The Madison is essentially a relay race, with the team pursuit contested by four riders chosen from a five-member team.
“We have an absolutely fantastic team heading to Paris this year,” said USA Cycling women's endurance coach Gary Sutton. “After returning from a very successful training camp in Zolder, our women have shown a significant improvement in performance and are poised to be highly competitive in Paris.”
Though Forkner is new to the team, he's no newcomer to elite cycling, having won three Grand Tour stages in the past two years and won the U.S. Road Race Championship earlier this year in one of the most dominant results in the event's history.
Cummins represents the future of American cycling: a full-time college student who will turn 21 during the Paris Games.
“I still can't put into words what making the Olympic team means to me,” Cummins said. “The Olympics was something I never thought I'd be able to achieve. It wasn't a big childhood dream. It was something that famous professional athletes did. … About a year ago, I was in a position where this was possible. I dreamed about the Olympics a year ago and I worked hard and sacrificed to make it happen.”
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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
