One of the best things about the Olympics is that nothing is set in stone. Athletes who are having the time of their lives can — and often do — beat out the event favorites to secure a spot on the podium. And that’s pretty much what happened in the women’s Olympic road cycling race on Aug. 4.

That’s when the US team Kristen Faulkner shocked the competition and spectators when she won the gold. And she not only to win. Making a dramatic breakthrough during the final 3 kilometers of the 158-kilometer race, Faulkner overtook the lead group and finished almost a minute ahead of the silver and bronze finishers from the Netherlands and Belgium, respectively.

Faulkner’s medal marks the sixth U.S. gold in road cycling since it became an Olympic event in 1896. She is the first American woman to win gold since 1984, according to NBC. And she shouldn’t even be there.

Faulkner, 31, qualified to compete in Paris for Team USA in track cycling, not road cycling. So less than a month before the July 9 road race, USA Cycling announced that Faulkner would take Taylor Knibb’s local. (Knibb decided to focus on the time trial and triathlon events in Paris.)

But considering the unconventional path that took Faulkner to the top of the sport, this last-minute Olympic substitution is only to be expected.

Faulkner grew up in the small town of Homer, Alaska, the self-proclaimed halibut fishing capital of the world. In an interview with NBC NewsFaulkner said her parents made her and her siblings “work every hotel restaurant job” they had. This must have instilled a serious work ethic; Faulkner went on to study computer science at Harvard, where she rowed on the university’s crew team for two years.

Before college, although Faulkner grew up in what she describes as a “pretty outdoorsy” family, her favorite activity was walk, not cycling, as she told NBC News. She attended high school at Phillips Andover Academy and joined the rowing, swimming and running teams — still without a helmet or clip-in sneakers in sight. It wasn’t until Faulkner moved to New York for a job in investment banking that she had to look elsewhere to get her “outdoor fix.”

Enter: road cycling. She started cycling in 2017, borrowing a friend’s bike to attend an introductory cycling clinic for women in Central Park, as she says. Cycling USA. “I showed up in running shorts and sneakers and learned how to walk around the cones,” she said.

After a bit of trial and error, Faulkner figured out how to properly clip into a road bike—and she hasn’t looked back. She would regularly wake up at 5 a.m. to ride for two hours in Central Park before heading to the office. After placing third in her first rookie race, Faulkner entered more weekend races and quickly climbed the rankings.

In 2018, she moved to San Francisco to train full-time with the Tibco Silicon Valley Bank team. She raced on the European circuit, where she had several podium finishes. She quit her job in 2020 to race professionally after winning her first professional race, NBC News reports. And she competed for Team USA at the 2021 and 2022 World Championships.

Now, just seven years after first competing, Faulkner has about 48 hours to bask in the glory of her well-deserved gold medal before stepping back into the spotlight for the qualifying round of the women’s team pursuit event on Aug. 6, followed by the finals the next day.

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