Jennifer Valente has turned the hills of the Roanoke Valley into the thrills of Paris.
The San Diego resident who trains in Roanoke with the Virginia’s Blue Ridge TWENTY24 cycling team, capped a brilliant Summer Games on Sunday by winning her second gold medal in 2024 and her third overall in the Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome.
Valente closed a fabulous two weeks of cycling by the USA women’s contingent by claiming gold in the Women’s Omnium with a dominating performance.
Valente amassed 144 points, easily topping the 129 points by silver medalist Daria Pikulik of Poland and bronze medalist Ally Wollaston (119) of New Zealand. Valente earned an extra 20 points by lapping the field in the fifth of eight sprints to all but lock up the victory.
The 29-year-old California cyclist entered the final points race with a healthy lead after the first three disciplines of Sunday’s four-part event. She won the Scratch and Elimination legs and was second in the Tempo race, good for a 118-108 lead over Australia’s Georgia Baker.
Valente kept up the pace in the final stage while Pikulik and Wollaston rallied from eighth and seventh places, respectively, to grab medals.
The gold medal was Valente’s second in a row in Women’s Omnium after her championship in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She also was part of the USA’s gold medal-winning foursome in Team Pursuit earlier in Paris along with USA teammates Chloé Dygert, Lily Williams and Kristen Faulkner.
Faulkner, an Alaska native, won the Women’s Road Race on Aug. 4 with a stunning late-race move to claim the gold medal.
Nevada native Perris Benegas earned a silver medal in Women’s BMX Freestyle as part of the USA’s most successful women’s cycling performance in Olympics history.
Valente’s performance gave the USA Women’s team six overall medals, the most ever for the Americans in a single Olympics and the first time the USA has won more than one gold medal in any single Summer Games.
