Team USA cyclist Brandon McNulty rode through Paris during the Men’s Cycling Road Race in the Summer Olympics.(Photo by Sydney Lovan/Special for Cronkite News)
PARIS – The Olympic Games represent the pinnacle of athletic competition for spectators and hold a near spiritual meaning for its participants, especially those in individual sports. To earn the world’s most coveted gold neckwear, the games demand the athletes dig deep. They must abandon care for pain or fatigue and find a mind space filled exclusively with determination and fervor to reach their ultimate goal.
Few know this as well as Valley native Brandon McNulty, who is living the experience at the Paris Olympics. On Saturday, he just missed the podium in the men’s individual time trial for road cycling, finishing fifth – the best finish for a U.S. competitor – despite steady rain and 90% humidity. He has another opportunity to medal this Saturday in the 169.4-mile road race that will take him past memorable spots including the Eiffel Tower and Palace of Versailles.
As usual, he will give it everything.
“There’s a point where you kind of black out,” McNulty said before he left for Paris. “It’s like, you’re just in a tunnel. You have a high heart rate. Everyone’s around you and (when you finish) you just always think ‘I never want to hurt that bad again.’ (However), You do it again the next day or the next month. I think I’ve always been good at channeling that.”
This price of extreme internal resolution may be no steeper than in cycling. For over a hundred miles on end, riders attempt to overcome mountainous terrain, wind resistance, other riders and most importantly, themselves. Lactic Acid builds up in their legs at frightening rates and during a “breakaway attempt”– the cycling equivalent to an all-out sprint – the body’s physical ability to generate force on the pedals decreases swiftly.
At this point, the legs beg for a reprieve. The onus is on the rider to refuse their requests. Post-race, the human body is physically spent. Many would take a few days to recover.
Olympians like McNulty, do it all again day after day.
McNulty started riding at a young age, inspired by his father who had a passion for it. R.J. McNulty, a software engineer, had developed an avid hobby for riding and was an active member of the cycling community in Phoenix. After taking a break through Brandon’s baby years, he mounted the seat, again this time with his son in tow.
“Brandon wanted to ride because he saw my bikes,” R.J. said. “We (would) ride around the neighborhoods. Eventually, the training wheels went away. We hit the dirt roads and trails and whatnot. That turned into mountain bike racing for him. He proceeded to dominate just about every race he did.”
Brandon and his dad were part of a club run by local bike shop Swiss American. A weekly Tuesday night ride would attract close to 150 riders. Almost every participant was an adult. Except for one.
“(Brandon started riding with Swiss American at) 11-12 years old, around that age,” R.J. said. “He would be the youngest there. Probably the only kid.”
McNulty’s talent was evident from an early age. At 16, McNulty participated in the prestigious three-day “Valley of the Sun” race held in Phoenix. The elite national-level race promoted by McNulty’s first cycling club, the White Mountain Road Club, held weight within the riding community and his performance in that race helped cement his name as a future star.
“That’s where he got his start,16 years old,” White Mountain Road Club president Brian Lemke said. “He won the Valley of the Sun stage race. It’s one of the biggest junior races in the nation.”
After that race, McNulty, then 17, left this boyhood road club for Lux Cycling, a national junior powerhouse program based in Arizona. It was then that he met coach Barney King. Under King’s tutelage, McNulty blossomed not only in track performance but in temperament as well.
“With Brandon, early on, he was very quiet,” King said. “He didn’t say much. When he and I would get together to talk or to discuss something, I would talk and he would (just say) ‘Yeah’ or it wasn’t a lot. It was a one-sided discussion most time, but as he moved along, he got much better at communicating. As he started to talk more, our relationship was able to move forward much better.”
The early shyness from McNulty should not be confused with an unwillingness to accept teaching. In fact, for those who watched his progress, his willingness to learn and to work at his craft remains one of his most redeeming traits.
“Whatever you told him to do in the way of training, whatever it was, he did it,” King said. “It’s rare to get that in every young athlete.”
McNulty’s wife, Summer, who was also a professional cyclist and met him through mutual friends when they were 15, believes that his coachability is a trait that has been developed as under increasingly strong coaching.
“When he 100% believes in the coaching, he doesn’t question anything,” Summer said. “He doesn’t ever even question anything, he just does it.”
While he was never the most talkative of riders, his talent at a young age spoke volumes to those around him.
“(Brandon’s) physical ability on the bike was at that point, at 17-18 was noticeable,” King said. “You’d see things that he did, through just performance, that was like, ‘Wow. That was impressive.’ We were at all the races we would be at on an international basis and people would come up afterward – other directors and things – they would say, ‘Wow, this, this is a talented kid you got here.’”
McNulty’s willingness to mentally overcome any internal challenges from his body bred his self-confidence in his ability to also overcome any external challenges in racing he faces. The confidence is a trait King has seen McNulty exhibit on multiple occasions in the Olympian’s youth years under King.
At the Tour l’Abitibi – a famous Junior race in Canada – McNulty and his Lux team had fallen into a time deficit at the end of one day of racing. After the race, King approached his team knowing someone was going to have to provide a sizable effort the next day in order to sniff a competitive finish. McNulty delivered.
“I walked up to them, and their heads were down, and they were just distraught,” King said. “Brandon asked me, ‘Well, how far am I behind now?’ and I said, ‘A little over a minute,’ He said, I’ll make that up tomorrow,’ and I said, Well, that’s good enough for me to see you guys back at the room.’ and walked away. The next day, sure enough, the race started, he attacked, and put, you know, like two to three minutes on the group. He took the (Brown winning-place) jersey back and held it for the last day.”
It’s McNulty’s ability to hunt down and then pull away from opponents in pursuit of victories that separate him.
“That kind of Herculean effort where you outrun a whole group of people trying to chase you let you know that this isn’t just an ordinary guy,” King said. “He said he did it, and he did it, as the French would say, with panache.”
McNulty has been anything but ordinary. As a junior, he notably won the Course de la Paix Juniors (Peace Race) in the Czech Republic. Since turning professional in 2017 for Rally Cycling and now racing for UAE Team Emirates, he’s continued to bring home silverware.
In his first season with Rally, he won the individual time trials at the U23 U.S. National Championships and took second in the U23 World Championships in the same event. He’s also won the Trofeo Calvia and Faun-Ardèche Classic in 2022 among other notable accomplishments in his seven-year professional career.
Off the road, he lives a simple life with his wife, where he takes a particular interest in the finer things.
“(Brandon is) a wine collector,” Summer said. “He’s very into drinking it, he’s into researching, and he spends a lot of time on his wine collection. He has an app where they’re all organized. We pickleball … in his free time. We spend a lot of time pickleballing with our friends.”
The Paris Olympics are delivering an entirely different vibe for him.. Although he competed in the Tokyo Games, he says because of COVID-19 restrictions, the grandeur of the event wasn’t present.
“There wasn’t the atmosphere around it, because everything was locked down, so it was weird,” he said. “I’m excited to see a real Olympics this year.”
Due to McNulty’s first Olympics being shut down by fans, and his family being unable to take a month off from work for his Tour de France races, the Paris Olympics will be his family’s first time watching his big races.
“We have not seen him at any of the big pro races,” R.J. said. “We were excited to come to this one.”
Brandon has reason to be excited, too. Although he’s never raced for the thousands of fans that will cheer him on in person at the Olympics, the two-time Tour de France participant is no stranger to the roads of Paris and the excitement surrounding his sport in the city.
He will once again have a chance to display his willpower and ability to endure on one of the world’s biggest stages in the road race Saturday. Most importantly, in front of his family for the first time.
The road race is the headliner for Olympics cycling as all racers compete shoulder-to-shoulder to cross the finish line first. There’s expected to be a large number of fans in the stands. Although Brandon has a unique ability to block out all the noise and has raced in France before, this event will be special.
“I think it’s going to be electric,” Brandon said. “Maybe a bit chaotic for sure. I’ve ridden the Tour de France. We finish the last days in Paris, and even just for one day of one cycling event, there are tons of people. So for the Olympics, I can’t imagine how it’s going to be, but I think it’ll be super cool. Probably the biggest crowds we’ll see.”