The Medal that Got Away Under the Great Wall

Centuries-old stone steps draped like a necklace over the lush mountainside 50 miles northwest of Beijing as road cycling concluded at Badaling, one of the most visited destinations in the most populated country in the world. After the morning mist lifted, Kristin Armstrong put an exclamation mark under the Great Wall of China by winning the women's time trial 24.29 seconds ahead of her nearest competitor, Emma Pooley of Great Britain - a huge margin for the 14.57 mile race.  Armstrong's lead bumped seven-time Olympian Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli of France off the medal stand, into fourth place at age 49, and another heart broke moments later when Armstrong's American teammate Christine Thorburn crossed the line in fifth place - just 3.17 off the podium.

Four years ago, Thorburn had finished fourth in the Athens Olympic time trial by 19.93 seconds. But three seconds, Thorburn said after the race, "you can make that up anywhere." 

The Iowa-born rheumatologist made no excuses, but after the race she revealed that she had lost radio contact with her support car.

Radio communication is optional in cycling.  Thorburn hadn't used a radio in Athens and wasn't planning to use one in Beijing, but she changed her mind when the start list came out and she saw that she would be the penultimate of 25 riders to begin the race against the clock. Thorburn's late start position would enable her to know the time to beat while she was still on course and be advised on where she might make up the difference.

So on Wednesday morning, Thorburn tucked the squawk box into the back of her sports bra to keep it in place and stretched the cord tight when she leaned forward on her bike and rolled out of the start chute.

The US women's road cycling coach Jim Miller had been providing Armstrong with tactical advice while the men's road coach Jim Ochowicz advised Thorburn in a separate car.

When Thorburn had about five kilometers to go, Miller was in the finish area with Armstrong, saw the scoreboard, and knew Thorburn's splits.

"I knew she was on the third-place bubble," Miller said of Thorburn, "so I called Och and said, ‘Christine can get a medal, but she has to GO.' [Ochowicz] immediately dropped the phone. He didn't even say goodbye."

But Thorburn couldn't hear Ochowicz. She had lost communication 6.3 km into the 23.5 km race. Ochowicz didn't know it and kept talking.

"They started yelling at me out of the car," Thorburn said. "I couldn't understand them. I couldn't hear anything on the downhill."

When Thorburn crossed the finish in 35 minutes, 54.16 seconds, she mentioned to Miller that she had lost radio. Miller looked at her connection and saw that the cord was half out of the jack.

After the women's medal ceremony, while Levi Leipheimer was on the way to taking the bronze in the men's time trial behind Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland and runner-up Gustav Larsson of Sweden, Thorburn was still thinking about those three seconds and analyzing the race to herself.

She reluctantly admitted that "time checks would have been motivating because I didn't know I was that close."

It is unclear whether Thorburn, 38, will return for a third Games. More immediately, she was looking forward to a long-delayed Hawaiian honeymoon with her husband of three years, Ted Huang (a two-time Olympic windsurfer who represented both the US and Taiwan) and returning to work as a rheumatologist in the San Francisco Bay Area on September 2.

"It's unfortunate when you're three seconds off a medal," coach Miller said. "We have the best radios money can buy. But we're not the military. We don't have repeaters flying about us. It is what it is."