By Julien Pretot
PARIS (Reuters) -American Kristen Faulkner caused a major upset as she won the women’s road race gold medal at the Paris Olympics, making the most of the top guns’ mind games to snatch the biggest victory of her career on Sunday.
The U.S. champion, along with Belgian Lotte Kopecky, caught the leading duo of Dutch great Marianne Vos and Hungarian Blanka Vas with 3.4km remaining and immediately produced a brutal acceleration.
Vas, Vos and Kopecky looked at each other, all three reluctant to burn the little energy they had left to chase, and let Faulkner ride to glory by the Eiffel Tower.
Vos won the three-women sprint to take silver and Kopecky claimed the bronze.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Ed Osmond)
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