Few riders will touch down in Rio with their careers so intrinsically and emotionally tied to the Olympic Games as Taylor Phinney. After all, there aren’t many riders who can claim to have Olympic champions as parents, who brought gold medals into show-and-tell at school, and who have staked so much on success this time around.
Still just 26 years of age, Rio marks Phinney’s third Games after a baptism of fire on the boards as a teenager in Beijing, and the two fourth places in the road race and the time trial in London four years later. Coming so close to medals in 2012 might typically gnaw away at a rider but, as Phinney explains, so much has happened in the last two years of his life that everything he has achieved and everything he has lost is seen with a greater sense of perspective.
“London was a pretty long time ago, and I do see myself as a different human being in the way that I view things and how everything fits together,” Phinney tells Cyclingnews.
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A huge factor in Phinney’s outlook stems from the career threatening crash he endured just over two years ago when he broke his left leg in a horrific race accident. A long and painful rehabilitation followed with operations to heal the physical wounds and support from those around him to deal with the mental and emotional traumas he sustained.
A return to cycling followed in 2015, and success came with it, but Phinney admits that it has taken the Rio Games for him to truly re-set his career and put to rest the doubt had led him to question his future within cycling.
“I went through a period where I was strongly considering just taking a break,” he says when asked about rumours he considered retirement.
Reaching equilibrium
Flying under the radar
Writing history
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