When elite mountain biker Lea Davison ’05 faces setback after setback on her Olympic quest, she learns how to redefine victory on her own terms.

In October 2023, Davison shared her story as part of the “Purpose and Place: Voices of Middlebury” event during the campus launch of For Every Future: The Campaign for Middlebury.

Watch Davison’s talk above or read the transcript below.

Transcript

It is August 20, 2016, and I’m standing on the start line of the Olympic mountain bike race in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Yeah, this is it.

I’ve had the dream of winning an Olympic medal since I was seven years old, and ever since that moment, I’ve seen life through the lens of “Will this put me closer or farther away from my Olympic dream?”

An entire career defined in 90 minutes, one mountain bike race.

People have high hopes for me because I won a silver medal in the World Championships just one month earlier.

I’m a favorite. And I’m nervous. I’m dealing with a tsunami of nerves storming through my body.

I try and take a deep breath to calm down my legs and arms from uncontrollably shaking, and it does nothing.

Okay, I can do this. I shift into the brake gear and I click my foot into the pedal and the gun goes off.

I am instantly swarmed, riders cutting in on me, left and right, and I spend the rest of the race fighting for my life in the middle of the pack, never giving up.

I cross the finish line in seventh. Seventh place. I am shattered.

I find my family and my wife, Frazier, and they give me excited hugs.

They’re so pumped with how I did, and I’m numb.

I’m shell-shocked. I have to make my way through the media mix zone to exit the venue, and all I see are the Olympic medalists getting interviewed.

It takes me a while to wake up, and once I do, I realize: wait, wait, wait, wait.

This is not over. In fact, it is so far from being over.

I’m in the best shape of my life and I have four more years to come back even stronger and get my medal.

It’s on.

I enter the Tokyo Olympic season even better.

I’m in the best shape of my life and I put in a seven-day grueling training block, grueling training rides day after day after day, and I hit the seventh day and I’m carrying my bike up the stairs and all of a sudden I feel a sharp, stabbing pain in my lower back.

It’s so bad. I collapse to my hands and knees and I’m sobbing uncontrollably, at first from the physical pain and soon from the emotional devastation of an Olympic dream slipping from my grasp. Everything needs to go perfectly for an Olympic dream to come true, and I’ve torn the disc between my L4 and my L5.

I assemble the support squad, my PT, my bike coach, my strength coach, all the coaches in the land, and we double down on the hard work and go full beast mode.

I give it everything in that Olympic qualifying race, and I just do well enough, just well enough to remain in contention for consideration for that last Olympic spot.

And then I wait. I wait for the decision to come down, on pins and needles. It’s more like a knife’s edge. 

And the email comes from USA Cycling.

It says, “Lea, you have not been selected for the Tokyo Olympic team.”

It also ranks the riders in contention and gives us each a profile.

And my profile states, “Lea is no longer riding at the level capable of winning an Olympic medal.”

Frazier and I are sitting on the couch.

We’re trying to process this information, and she points out the positive things that my profile says, like “Lea’s legacy has paved the way for future generations to experience success at the highest level of the sport.”

I don’t hear any of it. All I hear is my obituary.

Who are they to end my cycling career?

They don’t know what I’m capable of.

I do.

I know I still have one great race left in me, and it may not be the Olympics, but there are plenty of other World Cups left to race, and I am going to get my race.

That’s why I am the only one that keeps racing, of the three riders in contention for that last Olympic spot on the team.

First race, I get lapped and pulled from a World Cup. I’m humiliated. The last time that has happened was 20 years ago.

Second race, I crash and get a concussion.

And the third race, I fall off a bridge.

I wish I was joking. So when it comes time for the final race of the season, World Cup Finals on home soil in West Virginia, I’m on no one’s radar.

I haven’t had a good race in ages, and I’ve been completely written off, and I am desperate, desperate to have that race I’ve been working for. The race begins and I’m in the front.

Actually, I look behind me and one of the greatest mountain bikers of all time, Jolanda Neff, is on my wheel.

I’m riding so strong that as she is drafting off me and hanging onto my wheel for dear life, I am the first American to cross that finish line.

Thanks. Yeah. The crowd chants my name and the American flag is draped over my shoulders, and I realize I spent the majority of this race with Jolanda Neff on my wheel.

Let’s talk about Jolanda for a second. Those Olympics that I didn’t qualify for, well, three weeks earlier, she raced in them. And Jolanda Neff won the Olympic gold. 

I’ve done it. I got my race. And in this moment, I can finally hear the words that Frazier has been trying to tell me since the Olympics.

You see, three weeks earlier, I worked up the courage to wake up at two in the morning and watch the Olympic mountain bike race on TV.

As I watched, I got more and more excited because my friend and racer from Great Britain, Evie Richards, was absolutely crushing it. I couldn’t even believe it. Like as the race went on, she was holding her place, and as she crossed the finish line, I’m like losing my mind, jumping up and down.

“Frazier. Oh my God, I can’t believe it. Evie absolutely crushed it. She came in seventh.”

Frazier turns to me and says, “Yes, Lea. She did so, so well.” 

Thank you.