The most unforgettably heartwarming stories to emerge out of Rio 2016

An Armstrong that cycling can remember

Armstrong shows her medal to her son Lucas after winning the Cycling Road Women's Individual Time Trial [Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images]

2008, 2012 and 2016 – Kristin Armstrong has been the best in the world through these Olympics, through motherhood, and through her late thirties and early forties. At 43, Armstrong is quite simply the most successful woman on a cycle. She has also given the world an Armstrong that the sport of cycling can be proud of.

Battling chilly rain, fog and the stigma of a last name like hers in the sport of clean biking, Armstrong dominated the women’s cycling time trials and covered a distance of 18.5 miles in 44 minutes and 26.32 seconds.

At the end of the trail, she dismounted her cycle, and asked the camera person, “Did I win?” and then lay down on the ground curling into a ball when she found out that she indeed had won. Her six-year-old son was by then worried for his mother who was crying in spite of having won.

The two-time gold defender who came out of retirement twice not only had the uphill task of silencing critics who challenged her selection to the US team, with her trademark laconic wit, she ended her post-medal interview saying, “Now I have to teach [my son] sometimes we cry when we win.”