Lauren Stephens has been pulling out all of the stops for what could be her last chance to make the USA Olympic team, with her sights set on Wednesday's women's individual time trial at the USA Cycling Pro Road Championships in Charleston, West Virginia. The winner of the event will get an automatic ticket to Paris.
After her victory in the Tour of the Gila, Stephens has been training at altitude in hopes she'll be flying when it comes to race day at just above sea level. Making the Olympics, she tells Cyclingnews, "is part of my reasoning - I don't know how much longer I want to do this because it is a lot of hard work - how much longer do I want to work this hard?"
"It's not like I'm done racing the road after this year, but I've been saying that for four years so that things could change. So, making the Olympics isn't a make-or-break situation. It is something that inspired me to keep going and to give it a try."
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Stephens, 37, turned pro in 2013 and has been on the long list for the last two Olympics, missing out on the 2016 Games in Rio, which she said was a long shot. The 2021 Tokyo Olympic selection stung a bit more. Stephens ended 2020 as the best-ranked US woman in the UCI World Rankings, fighting through the COVID-19 pandemic racing lull by winning the virtual Tour de France on Zwift and then, when racing resumed, the Tour Feminin de l'Ardeche.
However, when it came time to select the team for Tokyo, USA Cycling used its discretionary selection procedure to pick Leah Thomas, Coryn Labecki and Amber Neben to the team despite their being ranked lower than both Stephens and her then-teammate Kristin Faulkner, both of whom were overlooked for the team.
"This is my third Olympics to attempt to make - the first one, I knew I wasn't going to make the road team, but I was on the long list, and that was pretty cool. And then the Japan ones were pretty disappointing, not to make it, and honestly, I didn't really think that I would have another opportunity.
"It was just something that inspired me to keep going but it's not make or break - I don't make it, I love to race my bike. So I'm going to keep racing and the Olympics isn't the end all be all, it'd just be pretty dang cool."
Stephens has kept her career fresh at every opportunity, from trying her hand at gravel racing, marathon mountain bike racing and racing on Zwift. After racing for Tibco for her whole career except a single year, however, she found out that the team would fold.
A contract with the new Cynisca team and another shot at the Olympic team has kept her going. Her determination to make the team for Paris showed with an early-season win at the Clasic de Almeria, a stage of the Tour de Normandie Féminin and the overall victory and two stage wins at the Tour of the Gila. The results have helped her work her way back up the UCI rankings and is now second to Chloé Dygert among the US riders.
Dygert earned an automatic selection to Paris as a world champion in the time trial and on the track, so is not racing at the national championships. Since the USA has only two places for the Olympic road events, Wednesday's time trial is a make-or-break race.
"The fact that Chloe is not racing makes it much more straightforward. Because if Chloe was racing and she won, then it would go to a discretionary selection," Stephens said.
"There's a lot of pressure. It's a flat time trial, which isn't the most favourable for me. I normally prefer something that has some hills and is a little more technical. But they're trying to mimic as best as they can what it's going to be like in Paris. So I think they've done a fair job at that. And all I can do on that day and do my best. Will it be enough? I'm not sure.
"We all saw how well Kristen [Faulkner] is riding here when she raced the Vuelta and there are also some outliers out there - you never know what can happen on that day. It was interesting to see Lily Williams and Veronica Ewers on the start list. It will be interesting to see what those girls pull off on that day."
The course in Charleston, West Virginia takes place along the Kanawha River on the flattest stretch of road in the Allegheny Mountain town, with the women racing 33.5 kilometres.
"It looks pretty straightforward - it's two laps on a parkway, hot dog style. You start in the middle, so there are four U-turns. The interesting part is looking like we're gonna have some rain, which I'm pretty excited about," Stephens said.
"The course is so straightforward - I like a little adversity in an event and the rain I think could give me that edge - I just would enjoy it to be a little more interesting."
Last year, Stephens came nine seconds shy of beating Dygert at the national championships in Knoxville in rainy conditions and said, "I think it was my edge last year at Nationals. Once we were out there it was just wet on the roads and flooding in some of the corners and things like that. But I think it definitely psyched some people out and for me, I just like to embrace that adversity."
Stephens' overall victory in the Tour of the Gila last month was just the first part of her preparation for the Olympic qualifying race in West Virginia. It showed that Stephens is on a level above most of her compatriots and on the right track to show it in the time trial. She won the opening summit finish at Mogollon and held the lead through to the final summit finish in Pinos Altos, winning the time trial midway through the five-day race.
"I definitely knew I was riding well, and it just reassured me that I made the right decision to keep racing for another year," Stephens said. "I've been a lot healthier this year. I've always been dealing with colds and respiratory stuff for the last couple of years. I think that the biggest difference is I've just been healthy the whole year."
