Looser ‘proud’ to finish Olympic race

Vera Looser says finally completing the women’s cycling road race in her third attempt “put a smile on her face”.

She placed 68th from a field of 90 riders during Sunday’s race in Paris.

The Namibian star finished a little over 11 minutes after Kristen Faulkner of the United States of America who rode away from the rest of the field to win the race in three hours, 59 minutes and 23 seconds.

In second place was pre-race favourite Marianne Vos (4:00:21) of The Netherlands, who beat Lotte Kopecky of Belgium to the silver in a photo finish.

For Looser, there were no designs on the podium. Instead, her objective was to complete the 158km race, having failed to do so at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

“I feel like an Olympian. For eight years, I had a DNF [did not finish] behind my name. Finally, that turned into a number,” Looser posted on her Facebook page alongside a photo taken in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

She said 68th place might not sound great, but she is proud.

“Not doing any UCI [Union Cycliste Internationale] races for two years leading up to this event might not have been ideal, neither was getting caught up behind a crash at a crucial moment of the race, but I did what I could and I will go to bed with a smile on my face tonight,” said Looser.

“Thank you for every message I received in the last days. I read them all and I am overwhelmed by the support.

“The crowds on the route were crazy! Thank you to the millions of people in Paris today. And to @konnylooser [her Belgian husband], I was the happiest seeing him with our Namibian flag.”