{"id":1885278,"date":"2026-04-15T01:14:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1885278"},"modified":"2026-04-15T01:14:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T22:14:43","slug":"call-it-a-comeback-phinney-targets-track-selection-for-usa-cycling-at-la-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1885278","title":{"rendered":"Call It a Comeback: Phinney Targets Track Selection for USA Cycling at LA Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"
The beloved U.S. racer revealed he\u2019s back training on the velodrome in an audacious quest to race Team Pursuit at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cNEVER IN A MILLION YEARS could I have predicted this\u2026but here we are. The old horse still has some kick,\u201d Phinney wrote Tuesday on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cCOMEBACK3000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat started as a return to gravel racing has delicately snowballed into a full-on Olympic dream,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt\u2019s been super fun and rewarding to find the love for training and ripping high speeds again over the past few months.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHuge 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phinney made his Olympic track debut at Beijing in 2008 aged only 18.<\/p>\n
The towering Coloradan went on to take back-to-back world titles in the individual pursuit in 2009 and 2010.<\/p>\n
He later transitioned to the road and soon won the opening stage of the Giro d\u2019Italia, becoming the third American to lead a grand tour.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He retired from professional road racing in 2019 and has dabbled in gravel racing ever since.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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Phinney returns to where it all started<\/h2>\nPhinney made his Olympic debut in 2008.<\/span> (Photo: DANIEL GARCIA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Phinney acknowledged that his chances of making the LA28 selection are steep. He said he\u2019d not held a time trial position \u201cin probably 7 years\u201d until his recent track workouts.<\/p>\n
However, the Olympic Games run in the Phinney family\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n
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Maybe genetic potential might put the towering Coloradan back into a USA skinsuit?<\/p>\n
Taylor\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
And of course, Taylor is married to Polish road-racing star Kasia Niewiadoma.<\/p>\n
USA Cycling finished fourth at the 2025 track world championships with Ashlin Barry, Graeme Frislie, Anders Johnson, and Grant Koontz.<\/p>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-1.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated April 15, 2026 01:17AM Taylor Phinney is back. No, not back on the gravel. Not on the road, either. The beloved U.S. racer revealed he\u2019s back training on the velodrome in an audacious quest to race Team Pursuit at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028. \u201cNEVER IN A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1885278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1885278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1885278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1885278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1885278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Phinney](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-82362146-1200x813.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")