Kristen Armstrong registers 2 firsts with 3rd straight cycling gold

Move over, Michael Phelps. Sort of.

U.S. cyclist Kristin Armstrong won her third consecutive gold medal in the individual road time trial Wednesday, becoming the first person to win the same Olympic cycling event three times in a row.

What's more, Armstrong — no relation to Lance — accomplished the feat one day shy of her 43rd birthday, which also makes her the oldest woman to have won an Olympic cycling gold medal.

"We've been told we should be finished at a certain age, but there are a lot of athletes out there who are showing that's not true," said Armstrong, who overcame a nose bleed at the 12-kilometer mark.

Armstrong completed the 29.8-kilometer (18.5-mile) course in 44 minutes 26.42 seconds, just ahead of Olga Zabelinskaya of Russia, who finished in 44:31.97. Anna van der Breggen of the Netherlands won the bronze medal.

Soon after her win, Armstrong got a pat on the back from another athlete who seemed to defy age: Barry Bonds. A cycling enthusiast, Bonds posted an image from the race and wrote, "Congratulations Kristin Armstrong 3 time gold medalist," on his Instagram account.

Remarkably, Armstrong almost did not make it to Rio. She came out of retirement in 2015, three years after calling it quits. Her latest gold medal was "the most gratifying," she said.

"It was the hardest of my Olympic journeys," she added.

Before becoming a full-time cyclist in 2001, she was a world-class triathlete, but she left that sport because she had osteoarthritis in her hips.

She said she would not try to compete at the Tokyo Games in 2020. In addition to continuing her work as the director of community health at St. Luke's Hospital in Boise, she will push for "equal pay and equal recognition" for women cyclists, she said.

Armstrong said the reason she had returned to the Olympics one last time was simple.

"When you've already been two times at the pinnacle of the sport, why risk coming back for the gold medal?" she said. "The best answer I can give is that I can."