- Olympic gold medalist Kristen Faulkner won her second consecutive U.S. road cycling title.
- Quinn Simmons earned his second U.S. road cycling championship in three years.
- Utah native Natalie Quinn finished 14th in the elite women's road race.
Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner defended her women’s U.S. national road race title Monday, while Quinn Simmons claimed his second win in three years on the men’s side.
Held on Memorial Day in Charleston, West Virginia, the USA Pro National Championship drew some of the best American cyclists in the country.
“I had a slow start to the season just coming back from an injury so this season started very differently from last year,” Faulkner said, per her team EF Education-Oatley. She suffered an off-season concussion, pushing back the start of her 2025 racing season.
“This was the first race where I really felt strong and I really wanted to win. I’ve loved having the (U.S. champion) jersey, especially with the gold Olympic bands, and so I feel like this race was the first race where I could really come back and set the tone for the rest of the season.”
Faulker surprised the cycling world at the Paris Olympics last summer in winning the gold medal with an attack in the final miles to break away from the lead group and hold off her rivals at the finish line.
On Monday, Faulkner timed her sprint perfectly to power past Lauren Stephens to win the 79-mile race by a bike length.
“I’ve been working on my sprint a lot this winter so I thought today would be a perfect day to try it out,” she said. “I went into the sprint knowing I wanted a sprint and I thought I could win from a sprint. It actually worked out really nicely. I knew as long as I stayed on Lauren’s wheel I had a good chance of beating her.”
Utah native Natalie Quinn finished 14th in the elite women’s race, just 24 seconds behind Faulkner. Quinn won the under-23 or U23 U.S. road championship in 2023.
Quinn for the win
The men’s race wasn’t even close.
Simmons launched a solo attack with about 22 miles to go on the 131-mile course and cruised to victory by 2 minutes and 52 second over second-place Evan Boyle.
“Starting last year, the Worlds showed that I was getting back to form. I had a strong spring and took my first World Tour win. Now I’ve got the jersey back,” Simmons said, per USA Cycling.
“I’m not afraid to say that on my day, I can be one of the top riders in the world. I think I showed that at Worlds, it’s just not my day that often. I knew I had to make a statement, not just because we’re racing for the jersey, but because I’m also racing for a ticket to the Tour (de France).”
Simmons, who rides for Lidl-Trek, grabbed his first World Tour win on the sixth stage of the Volta a Catalunya in Spain last month. His goal is to again make his team’s eight-man Tour de France squad in July. He competed in the Grand Tour race twice. He finished the 21-stage race in 2022 but fatigue and a crash forced him to drop out before stage 9 in 2023.
A total of 18 national champions were crowned among men and women competing across junior 17-18, U23 and elite divisions in the U.S championship this past week. This is the first year all three events for U23 women were dedicated races, meaning they didn’t have to race alongside elite riders. The new formats align with the 2025 UCI Road World Championships for the time trial and road race later this year, per CyclingNews.