Kristen Faulkner came to the Paris Olympics to prioritize track cycling over road cycling. While she accepted a spot in the road event, she considered skipping Sunday’s race to give her track ambitions a rest.

“I was going to be running Team Pursuit two days later, so I almost didn’t race the road race,” Faulkner said.

Luckily for Team USA, they agreed to stay in the competition after coming to the following conclusion.

“The bottom line is, the U.S. Cycling Federation wants us to wear medals, and that’s why we’re here,” he said.

Faulkner carried that supreme confidence into his Olympic cycling triumph. He proudly wore a gold medal around his neck on Sunday after winning one of his unlikely Olympic victories at the Paris Games.

In a race that included some of the sport’s all-time greats, Dutch Marianne Cos and Belgian Lotte Kopecky, Faulker opened up the gap in the final three kilometers and sprinted to the finish line to win the United States its first Olympic gold medal in the women’s road race in 40 years.

Indeed, his late attack caught his opponents off guard.

“I knew if I got a little bit of a lead, they would have to race for second place,” Faulkner said. “I counted to 10 about 10 times until we got to the finish line.”

Don’t be surprised if Hollywood buys the rights to Faulkner’s Olympic success story. It’s definitely worthy of a movie.

The 31-year-old Alaska native went to Harvard, where he was a competitive rower, and started cycling after taking a class in Central Park while working at a venture capital firm in New York City. Just four years ago, he hadn’t yet fully committed to cycling.

And now, he’s an Olympic road racing champion.

“This is a dream come true,” he said. “I still look at the finish line sign and wonder how my name got there.”