Call It a Comeback: Phinney Targets Track Selection for USA Cycling at LA Olympics

Taylor Phinney is back.

No, not back on the gravel.

Not on the road, either.

The beloved U.S. racer revealed he’s back training on the velodrome in an audacious quest to race Team Pursuit at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.

“NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS could I have predicted this…but here we are. The old horse still has some kick,” Phinney wrote Tuesday on social media.

“COMEBACK3000.

“What started as a return to gravel racing has delicately snowballed into a full-on Olympic dream,” he wrote. “It’s been super fun and rewarding to find the love for training and ripping high speeds again over the past few months.

“Huge thank you to USA Cycling and especially Allen Lim for planting this seed of an idea in my brain. I laughed it off at first, but with encouragement from wifey Kasia Niewiadoma the seed started to grow and before I knew it all I could think of was closing this final loop in my cycling career.”

Phinney made his Olympic track debut at Beijing in 2008 aged only 18.

The towering Coloradan went on to take back-to-back world titles in the individual pursuit in 2009 and 2010.

He later transitioned to the road and soon won the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia, becoming the third American to lead a grand tour.

However, his huge athletic potential was ultimately stymied by a severe knee injury which sidelined him for more than a year and reverberated through his career.

He retired from professional road racing in 2019 and has dabbled in gravel racing ever since.

Now aged 35, the cyclist-turned-artist-turned-DJ has been on the boards with the U.S. team in the hopes of bringing his cycling career full circle.

Phinney returns to where it all started

Phinney acknowledged that his chances of making the LA28 selection are steep. He said he’d not held a time trial position “in probably 7 years” until his recent track workouts.

However, the Olympic Games run in the Phinney family’s blood.

Maybe genetic potential might put the towering Coloradan back into a USA skinsuit?

Taylor’s mother Connie Carpenter-Phinney became the first woman to win Olympic cycling gold at the inaugural road race in 1984. His father Davis won bronze in the now-shuttered team time trial event that same year.

And of course, Taylor is married to Polish road-racing star Kasia Niewiadoma.

USA Cycling finished fourth at the 2025 track world championships with Ashlin Barry, Graeme Frislie, Anders Johnson, and Grant Koontz.