7 Months Too Long: Kristen Faulkner Returns (Finally) at the Tour of Flanders

Kristen Faulkner is so back.

The U.S. and double Olympic champion will race with her EF Education-Oatly team for the first time in seven months at the Tour of Flanders on Sunday.

After a 2025 that guttered with burnout and was snuffed out on the pavement of the Tour de France Femmes, the 33-year-old believes this could be a big opportunity.

“After the Olympics [in 2024] everything was so busy,  and I didn’t take a proper offseason. I was doing a lot of speaking and media events. The adrenaline was high. I was traveling a lot,” Faulkner said Thursday.

“I feel like I went into 2025 a bit burnt out before the season even started. It was my worst year of racing in Europe,” she said in a team note.

It seems that a long layoff recovering from a torn labrum might have been a blessing in disguise for “Arctic Faulks.”

“This offseason was the break that I needed all along,” she said. “With the shoulder surgery and having to take time off, at first I was pretty devastated. But I feel super rejuvenated now.”

So what does a pro cyclist and computer science graduate do when they’ve got time to burn?

Ride bikes and build gadgets, of course.

After suffering an initial month of rehab immobilized in a sling or stuck on the trainer, Faulkner spent the winter riding the coast roads of California and designing apps with AI.

“It was productive and mentally refreshing,” she said.

Faulkner raced on the roads for the first time since July last month at the Pan-American Championships. Her time trial victory proves that maybe a “happy rider is a strong rider,” after all.

Faulkner chasing a three-peak season: Ardennes, Tour de France, Montréal

Faulkner’s WorldTour comeback at De Ronde on Sunday marks a crucial step in her long road to the Olympic Games in L.A. 2028.

The Alaskan will ride her third Flanders this weekend as superdomestique for on-form Swiss teammate Noemi Rüegg.

After a GC victory at the Tour Down Under and a string of top-10s in the classics, Rüegg will start in Oudenaarde close behind the usual bigs – Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering, and Lorena Wiebes.

Faulkner’s personal ambitions begin after the cobblestone dirt has settled.

She’s got the hilly Ardennes classics circled in her calendar, dreams of a maillot jaune in France, and designs on a rainbow jersey in Montréal at road worlds.

“I would like to win a stage at the Tour de France,” Faulkner said Thursday. “My goal over the next two years is to wear the yellow jersey at some point. I’d also like to win more time trials, and get on the podium at worlds in the TT.

“The Olympics [in Paris] had been my goal for so many years, so in 2025 I think I was a little lost,” she added. “I didn’t know what I was working toward. So to be able to feel like now I can focus again on the time trial is really motivating.”