Pushing Their Pedals to the Medals

Spunky, savvy and high tech, U.S. cyclists go into top gear

In 1980, Connie Carpenter, 27, a former U.S. amateur speed skater and the 13-time national women's cycling champion, retired from cycling in a country that paid little attention to and even fewer dollars for training. Then in 1981, hearing that for the first time a women's road race was scheduled for the Olympics, Carpenter returned to training for what she called "the one last race of my life." Last week, exhausted and just meters from the end, she lunged her bike, like a kid jumping a curb, to victory only inches ahead of Teammate Rebecca Twigg. With that, Carpenter entered the record books as the first woman in history to win an Olympic cycling event and the first American to be awarded gold in the sport (the single previous U.S. medal: a bronze in 1912).

Americans winning bicycle races? That's a little like saying "movie deal" and "sincerity" in the same sentence. Not only did Carpenter-Phinney (she married ten months ago) and Silver Medalist Twigg, 21, triumph in their 79.2-km (49.2-mile) road race, but an iconoclastic team of 20 U.S. men coasted off with three golds, two silvers and a bronze in other events. Along the way, some of the favorites had trouble, and a handful of brash newcomers gained prominence. Said Carpenter-Phinney: "It will take a while to put it all into perspective."

U.S. cyclists have made a dizzying climb. The U.S. finished 23rd in world-championship medals in 1977, far behind the Europeans. A pre-boycott U.S. Cycling Federation Olympics guide predicted that the Soviet Union, East and West Germany would ride away with virtually everything in the Games but the women's event. However, under the direction of a dynamic former Polish national coach, Edward Borysewicz, 44, better known as "Eddie B.," U.S. amateurs have risen to rank near the top in international competition. Professional Road Racer Greg LeMond, 23, came in third in the Tour de France last month, the highest place ever for a U.S. rider, while fellow American Marianne Martin, 26, won the women's version of the event.

Spurred by the energy crunch, perhaps by the movie Breaking Away, the story of a youth intent on becoming a world-class racer, the country is developing a passion for pedaling. In 1983 the U.S. Cycling Federation issued 16,000 racing permits (9,000 in 1970); 10 million bikes will be shipped to stores for the country's 100 million riders. So it should have come as no surprise that 200,000 flag-waving aficionados gathered by the tile-roofed, half-a-million-dollar ranch homes in Mission Viejo, 50 miles south of Los Angeles, for one of the Games' few admission-free events. After the thrill of Carpenter-Phinney's performance, the crowd was treated to another last-meter dazzler by Alexi Grewal, 23, of Aspen, Colo. The 6-ft. 2-in., 150-lb. Grewal almost missed the Games: he was suspended by the U.S. Cycling Federation three weeks ago when a doping test revealed the presence of an illegal substance, phenylethylamine, an amphetamine-like stimulant. But the U.S. Olympic Committee gave Grewal permission to use a related asthma drug, which tests the same way, and he won reinstatement for him a week before the Games.