What can American biking be taught from Jennifer Valente’s Olympic journey? ‘Make it enjoyable’

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What can American biking be taught from Jennifer Valente’s journey from junior rider to Olympic champion?

A protracted and profitable profession in biking ought to have its basis in enjoyable.

“Not having such a aggressive setting from the start modified my outlook on sport, and what it may imply,” Valente informed VeloNews. “The neighborhood, and making it enjoyable. It appears like a cliché, of ‘Oh, don’t neglect to have enjoyable.’ Chasing an Olympic medal or an Olympic dream is such a worrying and taxing factor to try this in case you don’t have that basis of having fun with some a part of it, and discovering the nice issues, it’s arduous to proceed.”

Valente, 26, is our visitor on subsequent week’s episode of The VeloNews Podcast, the place she is going to take us contained in the thrilling moments of her latest Olympic title within the Omnium occasion. In profitable the race Valente grew to become the primary U.S. girl in historical past to win an Olympic title in monitor biking. She etched her identify in U.S. biking historical past with the win.

After profitable the Scratch Race, the opening occasion of the Olympic Omnium, Valente rode good and picked up races within the Elimination and Tempo races, positioned her into the pole place for the Factors Race. Not even a crash on the race’s midpoint may derail her effort, and he or she collected sufficient factors in the course of the occasion to take the Olympic title.

After the race Valente sat on the monitor and soaked within the second, tears of pleasure streaming down her face as she draped a U.S. flag on her shoulders.

“Main the Omnium from the primary race your thoughts regularly jumps to the top, and you need to regularly carry it again to the second,” Valente mentioned. “Again to the second. What am I doing? What’s happening proper now. Not letting my thoughts wanter to the top. And once I completed and knew I had received, it hadn’t actually set in. After which it was extraordinarily overwhelming.”

Lengthy earlier than she was an Olympian, nevertheless, Valente was a young person from San Diego who caught the biking bug as a child. On Thursday she mentioned her upbringing within the San Diego biking neighborhood, the place she was an everyday on the Wednesday group trip by means of Camp Pendleton, the Thursday evening races on Fiesta Island, and a stalwart on the San Diego Velodrome. Valente mentioned she laid the inspiration for her future skilled profession throughout the neighborhood, and it was the coaches and fellow racers who helped her domesticate a ardour for biking that took her all the best way to the Olympics.

“Actually studying the entire strategy of issues. Racing all types of various races regionally — factors races, sprinting, Kerins, scratch races, and random stuff that occurs at native veldromes like snowball races and win-and-outs — in addition to studying to work in your bike and the gearing and what it feels wish to trip completely different gears, and to motor tempo. These had been all a part of the journey and all of it contribute to the gathering of data. Whether or not you notice if it impacts something — I feel it does.”

You’ll be able to hear extra from Valente in subsequent week’s episode if The VeloNews Podcast.